


Just Between You and Me

by SBambs



Series: Slowburn Oneshots (Yes, I am aware that is an oxymoron) [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Jason Todd Deserves Better, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Kind of a slow burn, POV Female Character, POV Original Character, POV Third Person, Pining, in vignette/novella form, mainly clinical violence, this one's a doozy folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 40,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23886886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBambs/pseuds/SBambs
Summary: She knows she has to tell him. She knows he'd appreciate it more if she did, but it's so damn hard it hurts. But she's been in this kind of lifestyle almost as long as he has, so he's got to understand, right? Christ, she can only pray.Also know as, sometimes you have to find yourself before you find someone else.
Relationships: Batfamily Members & Jason Todd, Batfamily Members & Original Female Character(s), Batfamily Members & Other(s), Jason Todd/Original Character(s), Jason Todd/Original Female Character(s), Jason Todd/Reader, Jason Todd/You
Series: Slowburn Oneshots (Yes, I am aware that is an oxymoron) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1747591
Comments: 25
Kudos: 145





	Just Between You and Me

**Author's Note:**

> Hello folks! I'm very sorry for taking so long with this; once I got the idea in my head, I couldn't get it out. What started off as a simple writing exercise to get me going into the next chapter of Suds and Buds quickly escalated, and, well, yeah, with a bit of Hozier and some 40k words later, we're here. 
> 
> To make a very long story short, it's kind of a train wreck of pining and angst, softened by just the barest hint of fluff; it also kind of has some quarantine vibes at the end, so, uh, art imitates life? Nevertheless, I hope you folks enjoy :)

She knows she has to tell him. She has to tell him because her stomach is writhing with guilt and because she knows that leaving without saying anything to him is going to be infinitely more painful than biting the bullet now.

They’re jumping through the brooding, Gothic architecture of the city he hates and the city she loves. It’s a normal night; jokes are cracked as they leap from building to building; just to make the uneventful patrol seem less monotonous, they’ve proposed a race; verbal and physical jabs are exchanged, always playful and never leaving a lasting mark. Somehow, she can’t enjoy fully it all. 

Jason notices. Of _course_ he does. “Want to rest up here?”

“Okay,” she says, because she doesn’t feel ready to say it right then. 

They sit in silence, admiring the neon flashes and dark grayscale of the Gotham cityscape. The streets are bright beneath their dangling feet; and yet, as high up as they are, the light barely reaches them, only softly caressing their clothes and skin with a buttery kind of yellow. Jason’s red helmet warps the light in a way that makes her admire him more than the source of that dazzling wonder around them. She clasps her hands and then unclasps them, unsure of where to start.

All she knows is that she wants quiet—Babs is telling Bruce and Damian about something happening downtown, miles from where she and Jason are, and she just can’t focus with those three extra voices murmuring in her ear. That, and she wants this conversation to be private. She taps her earpiece to turn down the volume, then mutes herself. “Hey, Red? Can you turn off your earpiece and mouthpiece for a moment?”

She can’t see his face, but the way he tilts his head indicates he’s confused. He does what she asks anyway.

“What’s up?”

Quiet. The wind howls and nips at the dark alleyways below them. Somewhere off in the distance, a police siren sounds. They should probably follow it, but she needs peace just this once.

“I’m thinking of quitting.”

Jason cocks his head like he misheard her. The scrambled lines of yellow and blue and orange shift nauseatingly over his helmet. “Excuse me?”

“Sorry,” she says, twisting her fingers. “I’m not _thinking_ about it, per se. I _am_ quitting.” 

“Oh.” Jason is quiet. His gloved hands grip the ledge like he’s afraid he’ll fall. “Right now?”

“No. Probably by the end of the month.”

She can picture him counting the days left in his head. _Sixteen_. She hears the frown even in his garbled voice. “Have you told B yet?”

“No. I kind of just decided. That, and I know he’ll expect a formal letter of resignation and bullshit like that.” She’s trying to joke because Jason is uncharacteristically silent. She doesn't know what she expected, but it wasn’t this.

Jason doesn’t laugh, but he sees that she’s trying to keep it light. He attempts to make a joke, too. 

“Just decided, huh? Am I that bad?” Something tells her that that’s how he really feels, like he’s the reason she’s going away. Her stomach shrinks at the thought; he’s only ever been good to her. 

They both laugh anyway but don’t really mean it. It’s a hollow sound, and she feels more like a stranger with him now than she did when they first met. The laughter cuts off quickly, and the heavy, smoke-congested sounds of the city take its place.

“No,” she says after a long pause. “It’s just- I don’t know. I love the city. I’ve been in one since I was a kid, and I’ve always felt at home. Even when moving to Gotham.”

“But?”

She lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. “ _But_ , every summer we’d visit my grandparents up in the mountains and I miss it. I miss the stars and I miss the trees and I miss the air.” She pauses, unsure of where to go next. “I- I’m tired, too.”

“You’re younger than me.” Jason points this out like it'll get her to stay. He already knows she’s made up her mind, but she knows he feels the need to try anyway.

“By a year.”

“You also haven’t died.” 

There he goes again, talking about his death as a teenager like it doesn’t keep him up at night and like it doesn’t haunt his every move and like he doesn’t wish he was dead every day. She bites her lip, wishing he wouldn’t make light of something like that so often. It just makes him relive each torturous second over and over again. 

“ _Yet_ ,” she says, and he flinches like she’d just raised a hand to strike him. That stings more than a little bit. But she knows he was thinking it too, so she doesn’t feel too bad about voicing the reality of their job.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. This kind of lifestyle is _killer_.” His voice sounds shaky, and she knows it isn’t because of the voice-scramblers in his helmet. It’s another joke, maybe for his sake but probably more for hers; neither one of them laughs this time.

Another pause settles between them. She’s unsure of where to go from here; she’s stated (with confidence) her plans, and has explained (with significantly less confidence) why she has already committed to those plans. Jason seems distraught. Shouldn’t he be happy for her?

“Exactly.” she agrees, because she doesn’t know what else to do. “Don’t, um, don’t tell B yet. He’ll want to hear it from me directly.”

Jason waves his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”

“Thanks, Red.”

“Don’t mention it.”

He won’t face her anymore. She wonders if she’s said the wrong thing, if she’s made him hate her, or worse, if she’s made him hate himself more. She can’t stand the thought of Jason thinking it’s somehow his fault. 

“I’ve had my eye on this tiny cabin in upstate New York for ages.” She blurts it out before she can even think of its consequences. And now that she’s opened her big, dumb mouth, she can’t wrangle the damned thing shut again. “It’s maybe twelve hundred square feet—dirt cheap, too—with two and a half acres of land. This elderly man is looking to sell it to move into a nursing home.”

“Uh-huh?” His head is trained forward like he’s being interrogated. The lackluster response hurts her more than any amount of shouting or crying or cursing would have.

She bites her lip and begs herself not to cry. Her voice sounds thick anyway. “Yeah. And there’s this little patch I’m thinking about planting a garden in. I’ll have to fence it off, but there’s a solid forest of pine all around, so I won’t have any trouble with the lumber aspect. I’ll just need to pawn some chicken wire off of the neighbors and then I’m set.”

Jason nods, humoring her. His fingers tap at an inconsistent rhythm; she thinks it might be Morse code, but she can’t decipher it because she doesn’t know when or with what letter he started. “That’s good. You’ve always been creative, and you’re more than capable.”

It’s a half-assed compliment. He’s a million miles away like she’s already left him, like she’s already _gone_. Is he really that upset about her leaving? Does he really care about her that much? Her chest is light and heavy at the same time. 

“Jay?” He jumps, maybe because he’s been caught staring off into space and maybe because he’s not used to her using his civilian name when they’re in uniform. “You know you’re welcome to visit any time, right?”

“Sure,” he says, and it’s laced with a bitterness she doesn’t expect. “And bring every fucking villain on my tail directly to you? What kind of shitty friend would I be then?”

Of course he’d be more concerned with her safety and of course he’d be worried about fucking up her happiness. _It’s you_ , she wanted to say. _You’re my happiness. You, you you you. Always and forever you_. She doesn’t, because she’s afraid and because telling him she loved him isn’t exactly very romantic after saying she was leaving forever. 

“I’d rather have Joker or Penguin at my door than never see you again.” That’s as close to a love confession as she’ll get tonight. Beside her, Jason bristles.

“Then why are you _leaving_?”

For a minute, Jay sounds like his age—it’s because there’s no humorous front or hardcore act. He sounds like a lost twenty-something-year-old who’s trying desperately to hang on even though he knows he’s only going to keep slipping. She hates it because he’s only ever sounded like this when talking about his death and resurrection into the wee hours of the morning, and now he’s talking to her like that. Even still, she guesses she deserves it for being so selfish.

“I just have to.”

“Do you?” 

She can’t see his face, but she imagines a tight line where his mouth is and his thick eyebrows furrowed down to shield the innocent blue of his eyes. He always lowers his eyes when he’s upset, even when no one can see them. She hates thinking he’s doing so now because of her.

And as much as she loves Jason, she can’t give up fighting for _herself_. “Yes.” 

That one word is what prompts him to finally face her. “Why are you doing this now?”

“I just _have to_ ,” she repeats because she doesn’t know what else to say. 

The siren from earlier wails again, significantly closer. They should tap into police chatter to get a lay of what’s going on. Neither one of them moves. 

“Okay,” Jason says after a long time. Like he’s given up, like he’s already lost. 

They’re quiet again. She can’t tell if the silence is better than the anger exploding outwards in desperate words. She wishes she could go back in time and take everything back, but knew that even if she did, she’d still be leaving.

“You-” she starts, and her voice falters. “You can come with me if you want?”

He faces her again. The glare sculpted into his helmet suddenly feels very real. “You know I can’t do that.”

And she does. This work is personal for him. It's him clawing and pushing and fighting against the world that made him into what he is today so that it never does so to anyone else again. He can't stop this fight even if he wanted to, and he _doesn’t_ want to. 

She can’t blame him for that; she hopes he can’t blame her for wanting out. 

“Okay,” she says, because there’s nothing else left to say. 

* * *

They don’t talk much after that. 

They don’t click on missions anymore—there’s no banter; they don’t hold a movie night the next time she’s at the Manor—there’s no need, because they already know there will _need_ to be a last one and so why even bother; they don’t meet up for lunch after the particularly difficult mission that she knows is going to leave a large scar under her ribs—they have nothing left to say to each other.

There’s a rift between them now—an ocean, an entire universe. It separates them, and a part of her knows that if she leaves without attempting to mend it, she and Jason might never be the same. 

But he doesn’t want to talk to her; he’s made it very clear with the blank stares off into the middle distance when he’s around her and the way he always finds an excuse to leave any room that she’s in. So she lets him. Who is she to keep him from moving on?

Her last night is different, though. 

They’ve technically already had a patrol. They’ve also technically already returned to the cave and debriefed after said patrol. She goes back to the safe house but can’t sleep; so, she’s out to see the lights of the city one last time.

As per usual Gotham hospitality, it’s pouring. Her suit is already damp from the night’s previous activities. Putting it on now is somehow a cross between a straight jacket and a wetsuit that’s just been dumped into the Arctic. The chill cuts into her but she wouldn’t trade it for the world. 

She needs this. One last time, just to bury the feeling and get on with her life. 

The lights aren’t as pretty, probably because she has no one to share them with. She sits on a ledge, open to the rain. 

It’s no little storm, either; lightning cracks across the sky regularly, and for a brilliant moment the black heavens burn lavender instead. The stone around her ripples from the constant barrage of rain droplets; the dim luminescence from the office building across the street wrinkles and jumps and trembles across the miniature ocean around her. She welcomes each lash of water against her skin even though she knows she’ll probably be sick by this time next week. 

She also welcomes the sound of millions of pinpricks of water striking the concrete jungle around her. It’s constant static, not unlike the comms system when it blows out (on the rare occasion that it actually does). This is somehow less annoying, maybe because it cools her head and numbs her hands. Only occasionally does the grumble and shout of thunder break through, somehow echoing the pulse blooming within her. 

The rain is good because it also hides his arrival, and she can’t say she minds. Had she known he was coming closer, she might have run. 

As it is, she nearly falls off the edge when she feels something drape over her shoulders. She whips around, ready for a battle, and yelps when she sees him, sans leather jacket. 

There’s no helmet on his head this time, either. Just a white-lensed domino mask. She’s glad because at least now she’ll be able to see if he’s angry with her or not. Shadows carve their way into his skin, and he looks years older in the dark because of it. Her chest aches. The droplets of water that catch in his dark hair wink in the low light of the city. 

He sits down next to her in a slump. His impossibly broad and muscled shoulder brushes against hers with a shocking warmth. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“No,” she answers truthfully. 

“Me neither.”

They sit amidst the symphony of rain for a moment. The scarlet flickering off of the store windows below burns a little brighter with him next to her. She knows that once she leaves, she might never be able to look at the color red again. 

“Thanks for the jacket,” she says quietly. 

Looking over, he wears a tight sort of smile. “Any time.” 

They both know that ‘any time’ is quickly becoming ‘no time at all.’ 

“Can I- can I hold your hand?” Jason asks a few minutes later. It’s barely audible amidst the storm, and yet she hears every word perfectly. His hand is outstretched between them—there’s no glove, just his bare palm, opened upwards and begging for the heat of her own.

She strips her glove off. “Of course.” And she means it. 

Without another word, Jason clasps their hands together. He laces his thick, calloused fingers with her own slimmer ones, holding them firmly. She huddles against him. 

“I-” he starts to say, then stops. He’s shaking, and she knows it’s not from the cold. She squeezes his hand as if to tell him it’s okay. 

His index finger pecks and slides against the back of her hand restlessly: _taptap, tap-dash-taptap, dashdashdash, taptaptap-dash, tap, dash-tap-dashdash, dashdashdash, taptap-dash; taptap, tap-dash-taptap, dashdashdash, taptaptap-dash, tap, dash-tap-dashdash, dashdashdash, taptap-dash; taptap, tap-dash-taptap, dashdashdash, taptaptap-dash, tap, dash-tap-dashdash, dashdashdash, taptap-dash_. . . . 

_I love you_ , is what Jason is saying as his finger repeats this message over and over into her skin. _I love you I love you I love you_ -

She offers a small smile, bringing his hand up to her lips. Brushing a soft kiss over his knuckles, she meets his eyes; although she can’t see their beautiful color, the roundness of his lenses, upturn of his eyebrows, and slight gaping of his mouth all tell her that he wasn’t expecting her to love him back. 

But how could she not?

“Jason,” she murmurs, still not breaking their gaze. “I love you, too.”

His hand goes limp in her grip. She understands why; it would have been easier for both of them if she didn’t return his affections. Then, at least, they could have parted without the million what-ifs currently fluttering within their heads and chests. Part of her regrets the additional pain—Jason doesn’t deserve any more scars, whether they be physical or emotional. Another part of her knows that she could never lie to him, especially not about her feelings. 

Jason is the one to pull away first. It’s late—something like three-thirty in the morning. She technically has to be up in four hours to make the train; he has hours more of surveillance to go through when he wakes up tomorrow. They should be getting back to continue on with their lives. 

He stands up, and then sits back down. Neither one of them wants to leave; neither one of them wants to be the one to end this. 

It’s this moment that she hates the most. Because she wants to stop time, wants to kiss him senseless bathed in glowing rain, wants to hold his warm hand, wants to tell him ‘ _I love you_ ’ infinitely, wants to live in this moment forever. But she can’t. They can’t. 

She stands this time, and doesn’t sit back down. Her hand, the one that had held his, ruffles his soaking hair. She never wants to leave him. 

Kissing his brow, she smiles despite her heart pulling apart within her chest. And she lets go. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he manages to say. 

She looks forward to it. 

* * *

Three hours later, she folds the semi-dried jacket and places it just outside his door in the Manor. A yellow sticky note in her scrawled handwriting that reads ‘ _Thanks again for the jacket, Jay_ ,’ is stuck to its top. She leaves her suit in the cave, also folded; she has no need for it where she’s going, after all. 

She hasn’t slept a wink.

* * *

Four hours and twelve minutes after their rooftop meeting, she waits in the station, but not for the train. No, the train is there, and people are piling into it; she’s waiting for Jason. 

He doesn’t come to say goodbye to her. A part of her knows he won’t. 

She can only board to leave. 

* * *

It’s late afternoon when she arrives. The pine trees claw blue shadows over the cold world. She can see her breath, but the air is so clean and crisp that she doesn’t mind the way it digs into her skin. 

The first thing she does is start a fire; it’s early spring and there’s still a good eight inches of snow around the place. That means the inside of the cabin is as cold as a meat locker. At least the previous owner was nice enough to leave a generous pile of unused firewood, elevated off the ground and covered with a tarp. She puts it to good use. 

The cabin is small, but it’s comforting. It has three rooms in total: a small bedroom that can barely fit a nightstand and a twin bed, a ‘living room’ that doubles as a kitchen because it holds the wood stove, and a cramped bathroom. 

Structural beams are exposed on the inside and most of it, save for the front that’s sheltered beneath a small porch, is stone. She likes that it’s sturdy, and she likes that the rocks are mossy on the outside. It’s like the Earth is taking back the structure, cell by cell, mineral by mineral; maybe she’ll be able to get back to her roots too. 

It’s not all sunshine and roses, though. There’s a leak in the roof in the bedroom, but she can sleep in the wood stove room for the time being until she fixes it. When the wind blows, she can hear it whistle a forlorn tune through all of the cracks in the house. There might also be something wrong with the plumbing in the bathroom if the water damage in the floor is any indication. 

Nonetheless, it’s like her own private haven, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. 

There’s not much furniture aside from the wood stove (it’s part of the house and therefore can’t really be moved from it) and a rusted, cast iron bed frame left behind from the cabin’s previous inhabitant. She’ll need to go to some farmers’ markets or something to get cheap things to make the walls less barren. As it is, her single suitcase looks dreadfully alone in the corner of the main room. 

She’ll live, at the very least. She’s got enough money to last her five years, giver or take, if she’s budgeting correctly. A job somewhere in town would be nice, but she’s in no rush. 

She’s got time, for once in her godforsaken life. 

* * *

She’s fixed the leak in the roof—did it a month ago, actually. She’s also re-insulated the house’s original windows to stop the icy draft from creeping in. She’s done an okay job, but she thinks that Jason might’ve been able to do better. 

The place isn’t as empty anymore, either. She’s put up some shelves, which house her favorite books and some of the plants she nurtured back at the Manor (even though she hadn’t told anyone her new address, Alfred’s managed to ship up a couple of seedlings from the garden, which she lovingly cares for each day). She’s even managed to wrangle a small refrigerator, the kind they use in college dorms, into her home; she laughs about that one, maybe a little bit bitterly, because she never went to college and she figures this is fate cheekily making up for it.

Currently, she’s painting the bedroom. The walls were stained grey from cigarette smoke—she’s reminded of late-night stakeouts with Jason smoking and her and the others chastising him for it—and she’s done with the color grey. Gotham had enough of it, and she isn’t in Gotham anymore. She picks sage green because she loves the color, but her head flickers to red for the same reason.

Whenever she thinks about Jason, she gets up from her work and puts another log in the stove. Needless to say, she’s burned her hand twice on the cast iron handle, and the cabin gets so hot that she cracks open the front door and windows.

Icy wind and bits of frost slice into her skin as she works. There are still threats of snow even mid-April. That night is no different. As she’s painting, she sees a flurry illuminated here and there from the light of the room. 

She wonders how things are going in the city. Right about now, Bruce is probably briefing everyone on the night’s plans; despite her seclusion, she’s kept up on Gotham news, and knows that there hasn’t been anything big. A curse cuts from her mouth; she shouldn’t be thinking about this, and she’s gotten some paint on the trim. 

Still, she hopes everyone is safe and warm; she prays that Jason is okay. 

* * *

The mornings might be the worst part of her day. She’s used to waking up anywhere from four a.m. to one p.m., depending on the previous night’s activities. Her body decides that everyday is a four a.m. day, regardless of what time she went to bed. She thought that she’d escape from sleep deprivation when she left; clearly, that was an incorrect assumption. 

It’s always dark out when she starts the kettle. This day is no different. 

The wood-stove casts a low orange glow throughout the room; at first she wonders if she’s woken up in hell, and then she relaxes into the warmth, knowing she’s really in salvation. She looks at her list of things to do in the dim light: stop at the hardware store to pick up some caulk (the bathroom has a few leaks that she’s been putting off fixing), stop at the local grocer to grab the essentials, and maybe ask around for any jobs. She’s pretty sure there are a couple family-owned restaurants in town that need extra staffing, so she’ll start there. 

The world out here is so quiet and slow. Lethargy settles into her, even though her heart always seems to beat too fast. She supposes it’s because she’s used to running back-to-back missions on increasingly-little sleep; the hustle and bustle of the city has always been a part of her bones, and now that she’s in the country, restlessness hums in her veins instead. She’s ill-equipped to fit in here.

Still, she manages a smile. And a genuine one, too. 

She’s finally stopped looking over her shoulder. The days where she needed to do that, where she always checked for a sniper or a murderer or a psychotic clown behind her, are over. She may be used to surviving, but she’s hellbent on _living_ now. 

The kettle whistles. She gets up to make her morning cup of tea. It’s a new day, and she’s alive. That is cause for celebration enough. 

* * *

It’s that time of spring where patches of leaves—gold, auburn, chartreuse—speckle each branch. The pines are as green and healthy as ever, though are still overshadowed by their once-barren counterparts. A winter reprieve, with a twist of something young woven in the trees that she knows are older than her. 

_Maybe things will get better_ , she thinks to herself with hollow eyes and a slight sort of smile that barely pulls up the edges of her mouth. 

Dizziness swarms and trembles her head as she stares into the speckled foliage. The vernal landscape is still somehow mildly hostile, even though it promises warmer weather. Her legs feel heavy and light and not at all her own. 

* * *

Late spring is when the weather starts to become more mild. 

The thaws from the mountain cause the stream running through her property to roar; sometimes when she just wants to relax, she sits near it on the lichen-spattered stone wall beside it and watches the water eddy and swirl. Its sound is comforting and loud, and the water is so clear she can see the pebbles some three feet below its surface. It reminds her of the storm drains in Gotham after a big storm, for just a moment; she thinks about her last night in the city. 

That’s usually when she heads back to the cabin. 

* * *

She’s back in Gotham, just for the day. 

It had started with a phone call from Dick asking if she had the time to meet up with him and Duke and Cass. She’d said yes—the cabin is lonely from time to time—and booked a two-way ticket on an overnight train right away without really thinking about it. 

She misses everybody. That’s a given; the whole (self-dubbed) bat-family has been there for her through thick and thin, and she’s thankful for that. 

But as she sits in the train cabin, wanting desperately to fall asleep, she can’t. Worry twists up the inside of her. She wants to both see Jason and avoid him at all cost. The majority of her doesn’t blame him for not seeing her away at the station; a small, stupid part of her does. 

When she’s back in the streets that were her home for the previous eight years, she feels terribly small. The buildings that she used to leap across now tower above as if to bully her. They tell her that it’s _her fault_ and that she betrayed everyone. Her feet are numb as she walks to the diner that Dick specified; Jason’s taken her there before for pancakes after a mission that ran until five in the morning. Every cell in her body screams at her that it isn’t too late to turn back, but all she can do is keep walking numbly forward. 

She sees Cass’s big grin from outside the streetside windows; she mirrors it because she doesn’t know what else to do. 

“How’s it feel to be back?” Duke asks as they pick out their food. 

_Like shit_ , she wants to say, but doesn’t. Instead she looks up from the menu and wrinkles her nose and cracks a joke. “I’m already so used to the bitter cold up north. Down here, I’m just melting.”

Dick raises his eyebrows. “Is it really that cold up there?” 

“Last Friday it dropped back down to twenty degrees. Then on Saturday it snowed four inches,” she admits. Dick curses and Duke whistles and Cass’s eyes are wide. Despite the general heaviness pulling on her body, she finds happiness in just _being there_ with them again. God, she missed them all. 

The waitress—a redhead who looks like she’s in high school—comes around to take their orders. Everyone else gets a burger; she gets the pancakes. 

They go on talking about her new life—“Why’d you go up there if it’s so cold?” “How’re the locals?” “When can we visit?”—and she smiles genuinely as she answers—“I really prefer the winter up there; the snow’s pretty even if you have to shovel eight feet of it,” “They’re kind, for sure. There’s no one my age, but they make me feel welcome and everything,” “You guys can come up anytime.”

She hadn’t expected them to be so happy for her. It feels good, not to be scrutinized for her decision. She guesses she’s done enough self-antagonization over the last couple of months for them. 

“How have things been down here?” she asks. She feels obligated; a part of her knows she’s guilty of leaving them in a desperate kind of situation. While nothing crazy akin to the end of the world is happening, she knows that eventually crime will pick up and they’ll be stretched thin again. 

“Eh, the usual,” Duke says. 

She raises her eyebrows. The usual, from what she remembers, is seldom good. As she takes a closer look at them, she sees the tiredness carving beneath their eyes. “Anything you guys need help with?”

She flinches at the words, knowing it’s a slippery slope. It’ll be one favor now, another later, and suddenly she’ll be back on the team again, like she never even left. 

“C’mon, you’re retired. You don’t need to worry about us,” Dick jokes, though she knows it’s to help her save face. Everyone at the table saw her wince, and everyone at the table is probably thinking how much of a hypocrite and coward she is. 

The cashier calls their order number; Cass and Duke look at Dick—Cass seems sad, Duke frowns like he’s upset—and her stomach drops. A silent conversation, filled with ‘ _What if-?_ ’ and ‘ _Should we-?_ ’ and ‘ _Is there-?_ ’ plays out between them, communicated only through their eyes. Then, Duke and Cass get up to get the food. 

“How is everyone?” she asks because she can’t strangle the words down in her throat anymore. What she really means is ‘ _Jason, how is Jason?_ ’ Of course, Dick picks up on this.

“Alright, but. . . Jay’s not doing so well right now.”

Her stomach lurches. _Her fault her fault her fault her fault her fault_ \- “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Dick says and looks like he means it. He reaches over to put a warm hand on her shoulder. “You’ve got to look after yourself first and foremost. Jason knows that.”

“Oh-okay.” 

But Jason didn’t say goodbye to her, so she thinks that maybe this is a lie.

* * *

Exhaustion crawls into her and wears her skin like a suit when she gets home. She reasons that it might be from the six hour train ride there and back, but she knows it’s from the pitied glances they sent her way before she left. 

She wants to be happy; that’s why she stopped and that’s why she left and that’s why she rebuilt. She wants to be happy and live until she’s seventy. She doesn’t want to keep wondering if she’s going to wake up the next morning just like she doesn’t want to break her body down to nothing only to be called a ‘hazard to society’ by local news outlets. 

She feels happy in the mountains. Melancholy gnaws at her, yes, but she feels like herself, and she feels safe. 

She prays to some unknown god that they don’t blame her for wanting that. 

* * *

Dick calls her back again in a month for another get-together. She declines, saying that she has a lot of work still left to do to the cabin. It’s a lie, and both parties know it. 

She isn’t strong enough to go back a second time. 

* * *

The summer heat is brutal during the day, but at night, the mountains remember winter’s frigid breath. Fire and ice, hot and cold, or, cold and colder, when the occasional rainstorm blows through. 

It’s cyclic, a thermic ouroboros that allows her to roll with the punches of her mind and heart fighting each other. When it’s hot, she leaves the windows open; when it’s cold, they _stay_ open, even though she often wakes up from shivering in the middle of the night. She wants to feel the cold because it keeps her grounded in the moment, which is what she needs more than anything when her mind is perpetually elsewhere. 

The sweltering sunlight hours are spent in the garden. Sweat drips down her back and brow and arms and legs like flies crawling over her skin. That sticky discomfort, too, keeps her focused on the present.

The labor that carves into her back is somehow both grueling and numbing. She can concentrate on the ache in her shoulders and think about all the stretches that Bruce and Dick have taught her to alleviate the pressure while her body does the work; she’s present but not as she sets up the garden she so enthusiastically described to Jason the night she told him she was leaving. 

First, she digs holes for the posts to rest in, which takes about a day and a half given the large proportion of rocks in the soil. The next three are spent cutting down and shaping the pine posts from the surrounding woodland. Setting them in the holes, buying cement to secure the posts and chicken wire to protect the inside of the enclosed area, takes another two. Only then can she begin planting. 

Her hands are calloused from shoveling and her fingers ache from overwork. Her back hurts from hunching over the earth, and a shooting sort of jolt races down her right foot because she pinched a nerve from kneeling on something hard. 

By the end of each day, her nails are crusted in mud and she feels distinctly grody from both the sweat and dirt, but she can breathe a little easier. That’s because she’s pouring herself out and back into the Earth, into something that will help her future, into something she can actually _live with_. 

Ten hours a day, she’s out in that garden, planting, watering, and weeding. 

As she works, she wonders how the others are doing; usually during the summer, when Damian doesn’t have school and crime sometimes lessens when a particularly terrible heat wave comes through, everyone relaxes by the pool. Seeing as she hasn’t had rain in the past two weeks, she can only assume Gotham is just as unbearable and dry. 

Jason will undoubtedly get sunburnt, especially when she’s not there to remind him to put on sunscreen. 

She throws her head back as soon as the thought enters her head; looking up at the bright, angry circle in the sky that scorns her retinas, she hopes to get him out of her head, for both of their sake. 

* * *

Dick continues to call every month even though they both know she’ll say no. 

She knows he’s doing it just to be nice, and it lessens the weight on her chest knowing they want to spend time with her, but it makes her feel worse that she just can’t bring herself to go back. Jason is stitched into every inch of Gotham, and seeing as she’s broken his heart, she’s afraid to see what else she’s broken in its wake. 

She wonders if she’ll ever be able to go back. 

* * *

Early August is when she runs out of home improvements. The garden is finished, and aside from a weeding every two weeks (even that’s vaguely compulsive and unnecessary), it hardly needs any attention. The summer has cool rainfalls to water the blueberry bushes and roses she’s planted, so she doesn’t even need to break out the watering can she bought for two bucks a couple of weeks ago. 

She’s also chopped up an acceptable amount of wood to first, did so in June and July so that it’d at least have half a year to season before it went up in flames. When she does the math in her head, she should have enough left over from the previous owner to get her through that seasoning period, just barely; it may mean a few nights where she has to wear two layers of sweats, but that’s doable, and hardly worse than any other cold she’s had to endure during her life. 

She has nothing else to do to occupy her time, now. Getting a job is still a priority of hers, but the heat of August siphons out any willpower despite the impatience humming in her veins. 

Somehow, this is infinitely worse. 

So, she reads and rereads all of the books she’s brought up; she’ll have to get more the next time she goes out. When she reaches for _East of Eden_ for the third time that month, she tries not to think about how Jason’s birthday is coming up. 

* * *

Reading yields less and less distraction as time goes on. Her mind wanders between the uniform lines, burrowing in the thin white stripes under venomous ideas; she wonders if Jason is reading right now, and curses herself when she knows she shouldn’t linger on him. 

Cabin fever. That’s what she has—it’s got to be, even if she’s not snowed in and free to leave for the wood at any time.

She does just that, lacing up some hiking boots and packing a lunch in a small backpack. With all of the work she’s put into the house, she hasn’t had much time to fully explore the wilderness surrounding her. It’s as good a time as any to memorize every inch of her property before the frosts set back in. 

She doesn’t get very far. 

The chicory weeds, amidst dry brambles lining the opening of her yard, haunt her. Their color is somewhere between periwinkle and a cloudless sky, and they somehow manage to glow in the shadows like blue flames. 

She vaguely remembers her grandpa telling her that they’re in the dandelion family, but all she can really think about is how much they match the color of Jason’s eyes. 

A part of her wants to pull them from the ground, wants to use their greyish stalks as kindling out of spite, because she can’t seem to escape from _him_ in even the simplest of things. Another part of her hates the thought, because they’re actually quite pretty for weeds (better than onion grass, at the very least). 

She manages to get close to them. Their color is even prettier up close—in a strange way, it’s like she never even left her previous life.

Her hands gather a few before she can stop them. 

* * *

Instead of kindling, she puts them in a vase, save for two stalks. Her thickest books are put to a different use: flattening the shoots between two sheets of paper towel. 

She unlaces her boots, knowing she isn’t strong enough to face that blue outside for a while. 

* * *

She goes to send a card five days before August 16th. The town’s post office is a ghost town, with only one worker, a fifty-something-year-old man named Marvin, staffing the counter. His bushy mustache reminds her of Commissioner Gordon, though this fellow is a brunet and not a red-head. 

“Do you have something you want to send, young lady?” he asks. While his voice is gruff, the way he voices the words is soft.

The red envelope in her hands, held behind her back because she can’t stand to look at the scarlet, quivers. It’s thick, thicker than the envelope actually permits, rounding the creases and giving it shape; in it are five pages of lined paper, with messy words scribbled on both sides, folded three times over, as well as a pressed chicory flower bookmark that she hopes Jason’ll put to good use. 

Her fingers trace along the bubbled edges of her letter, and she swallows before putting on a smile. “No, uh, I’m just here for some stamps, please.” 

_Coward_ , a hissing sort of voice whispers in her head. 

* * *

She wedges the sealed letter and two dozen stamps she bought between two books, onto the high shelf that she installed a few months ago. She doesn’t want to see her failure. 

She _does_ want to call Dick to ask him to pass a message onto her Jason, but knows she won’t. 

All she _can_ do is sit in bed and stare up at the ceiling, eyes catching on the individual grains rippling over the exposed wood, hoping that somehow, by the grace of God, he’ll get her message all the same. 

Yet another impossibility. 

Why does she keep doing this to herself?

* * *

It’s only on his birthday that she manages to venture back out into the woods. The border of chicory is still a formidable obstacle, especially when the wound of her recent failure regarding the letter is still fresh and open; she manages to step through the brambles and into the cool shade where the cicadas hum and the birds chirp. 

Some fifty feet into the woods, she sees a speckle of red and freezes. Wild raspberries. Somehow, they manage to make her heart both swell in delight and sink down into her gut. 

Her head replays scatterings of memories—hiking with her grandparents through thick forests, the trails barely distinguishable from deer paths—spotting the crimson berries, some sweetened by the sun’s honeyed rays and others still orange and tart—biting into them, with their explosion of juice and the crunch of their bulbous seeds—eyes scanning through the thick brush for another bush, desperate for more of those carmine delights. 

Better times. Simpler times. 

She steps closer, swatting away a fat mosquito from her face. They glint in the stubborn light of the sun still breaking the canopy above. They’re red like Jason’s helmet, and she wonders if they’d be as sweet as his lips might be. 

She gathers all she can hold in her hands before returning to the house. It’s against her better judgement, but she does so anyway, even going back twice more to pluck those cursed bushes dry. 

* * *

At night, she uses a rusty ladder to climb to the roof and stargaze. It’s nostalgic; she’d do it every summer with her family, with blankets to keep out the biting air and skin soaked in acrid-smelling bug spray to deter the mosquitoes. 

Hercules is front and center, along with most of Draco. If she stands up, she can just see the handle of Ursa Major. 

When she was young, her grandpa told her the stories of each smattering of stars, with his wrinkled hand, barely illuminated by the nebulae, tracing out the lines of their respective celestial forms. Even amidst the still, summer air, populated only by the chirps of frogs and crickets as well as the ember of the occasional firefly, she hears his gentle voice in her ear. 

That was years ago, though. 

That was before she saw how poverty carved into her family and how cruel people really could be and how much pain and hate and fear was in their world. No Greek hero could fix all of that anguish, but someone ought to at least _try_ to. That’s why she decided to go into the vigilante lifestyle; she might not have been a Perseus or an Atalanta, but she wanted to make a difference in any way she could. 

As she looks up into the velvety blue sky, she remembers how she thought she could handle its weight. Even when life had beaten some sense into her, naivety still remained, relatively unscathed. Maybe it was out of sheer hope for the future, or maybe she was just a fool, but that small flicker of innocence was the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

She could only do so much. They—her coworkers, her friends, her family—could only do so much. She was losing herself. And at what point, when one loses themselves so completely, when one changes so beyond recognition, does it become murder?

She never really did have the stomach for killing. 

Her lungs ache from breathing, but she pulls in long, deep breaths anyway. She smiles up at the stars despite the wet warmth tracing down her cheeks. She knows she had to do it; she had to save herself. 

She just hopes that Jason knows that, that he’s safe, and that maybe one day, he’ll choose to save himself, too. 

* * *

Late August has days where the sun beats down onto her shoulders and days where the shade cuts deeper into her skin than any pricker bushes could. 

The wild raspberries are thoroughly scavenged, both by her greedy fingers and the local finches. There are still a few specks here and there, but they’re far and few in between. That, and they’re too sun-soaked, rotting from the inside out, their red like dark, crusted blood. 

She has to move on. She knows she does. 

Still, whenever she sees a crimson streak out of the corner of her eye, she moves closer to see what it might yield. 

* * *

September yields heavier, darker dusks and particularly brisk winds. She makes it a habit to sit outside at sundown, just to feel the air bite into her, and to hear the whispery howls of mourning doves. 

* * *

She’s always loved autumn in New England, for a number of reasons. One, because peachy sugar maples and rust-brown oaks and gold yellow birch burn across its forests, a natural, slow-burning, and generally harmless wildfire; two, because the air is delightfully cold—so cold that when she goes out she forgets about the ache in her chest or the fact that she wants to cry most days. 

It’s the best when it rains. The fiery plumage of the forest is made even more brilliant when it glistens and sparks amidst the water. And if she steps out into the cold, she’s transported to months ago, to a night where she broke Jason’s heart and her own. 

Her clothes are soaked and her heart is heavy, but at least she can’t feel her fingers and at least she feels like she’s burning for every single goddamn sin she’s committed out of pure selfishness. 

* * *

It’s been raining for two days without much sign that it’ll let up. She doesn’t mind; against the autumnal leaves, the colors of flame tremble and spark. That, and it reminds her of the many days and nights spent in the rain of the city she loved and left.

The kettle is on top of the wood stove. It’s two, maybe three minutes from boiling. She welcomes the hissing, bubbling sounds that fill the cabin, because they promise a warm drink to hold between her tired and cold hands. Right now, she’s making dinner: roasted chicken and carrots. It feels good to do something so mundane when her soul is elsewhere. 

There’s a knock at her door. It’s loud and sturdy, purposeful, like whoever’s knocking knows she’s in here and who she is and what she’s done. 

The day she knew would come—the inevitable, defining moment when her previous life caught up with her—is finally here. 

She grits her teeth, creeping over to it, still holding the knife. She breathes in deeply, making sure to hide the weapon—she remembers how Jason had said to never let her enemies know what kind of arsenal she had; then she remembers Roy laughing as he said that he was screwed then—when she unlocks the door.

Her pulse is wild in her ears as she slowly opens it. There, in a black trench coat, with hair slicked back and immaculate, in all his brooding seriousness, is Bruce Wayne. The lines of his perpetual scowl cut deep into his pale face. His ice-blue eyes regard her as they always have: with a severity softened only by the faintest edge of warmth. 

Despite this, her hackles are still raised. It could be Clayface (Lord knows she’s put him in Arkham more than once), and even if it is really the big bad bat himself, it doesn’t bode well for her all the same. 

“I’m glad to see you again.” He says it with all the forced politeness that’s distinctly characteristic of his business persona. She knows it’s forced mainly because this is an awkward situation for both of them; she quit several months ago and he approved it, ergo, they shouldn’t have ever needed to see each other again unless it was _imperative_. 

She squints her eyes, still skeptical. “How do I know you’re actually Bruce Wayne?”

He holds up his wrist; on it is his father’s watch, the one Jason fixed for him as a child and the one he only wears around the Manor. She presses a thumb against it—it’s cold, the metal and glass chilled from the overcast day—because Clayface can’t completely replicate texture or temperature. She thinks she sees the barest hint of a smile on his lips at her suspicion; she’s picked up some of his neuroticisms (he’d call them ‘strategic assets’) while working with him. 

“Okay,” she says after letting out a long breath. “Come on in.”

“Thank you.” His light eyes lay waste to her modest living accommodations. Her face flares in embarrassment. It’s small and it’s relatively neat, but she’d very obviously not been expecting company. She kicks herself for not sweeping the floor the day before. Bruce is hardly the kind of person to care too much about the size or relative untidiness of a house, despite growing up in the lap of luxury; still, she wishes she had more to show. “Nice place you have here.”

She snorts, mainly because she doesn’t know if he’s making a joke or being serious. “It gets the job done. Would you like tea?”

“No, thank you, though,” he says.

Bruce shuffles in his coat like he’s uncomfortable. She thinks it might be because she’s still holding the knife, but they both know she’s hardly a threat up against him. 

“Alright,” she drags out the word. Her palms are sweaty, mainly because she already knows the answer to the question she’s about to ask. “I’ll bite. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

There it is again: the ghost of a smile just barely curling the edges of his lips up. It’s gone in a minute, typical of Bruce Wayne/Batman’s intense seriousness. There’s nothing humorous underlying the circumstances as to why he’s here. “We need your help.”

She knows this already. Her eyebrows still raise like she’s surprised though. That might be because it’s been eight months and she never expected to make it this long without being called back. If she’s being honest, that’s a far better run than she’d ever anticipated; somewhere along the line, she thought she’d be called back into action, or else found out and killed. 

“You’re lucky I haven’t found a job out here yet,” she says with a bitter sort of smile. It’s meant to be lighthearted—despite everything, she’s still trying to joke to stop the sick feeling from curling up in her stomach and chest again.

“I’m sorry.”

The last thing she expects is for Bruce to apologize. He says it like he’s at a funeral, and she knows it might be her own in a week. 

Finally setting the knife down against the cutting board, she asks, “When do you need me?” 

* * *

It’s hard coming back to Gotham. The first time was at least on her own accord, because she’d promised Cass, Duke, and Dick that she’d catch up with them every couple of months. This time, she’s being dragged here more or less against her will. She promised Bruce she’d help, but this is exactly the kind of thing she’d been trying to avoid. 

As they drive past all of the familiar landmarks she used to associate with _home_ and _Jason_ , her stomach begins to twist. She’s been gone for more than half a year, and she’s fucking terrified of what might have changed while she was away. 

* * *

Wayne Manor looms over her when she steps out of the car. It’s a beautiful piece of architecture, old but fantastically maintained. All that said, she hates the building; its sharp edge work and gloomy color scheme rip into her skin despite not actually touching her. 

She’s on edge. That’s what this feeling is. 

It won’t do her any good to mix work and inner turmoil—she knows this all too well—so she forces herself to take deep, achingly slow breaths and to walk as steadily as she can up the front steps. 

Her hand reaches out for the handle, but the door swings open before she can do anything. Alfred Pennyworth, in all of his stern but warm and wry glory, greets her. There’s a sadness seething in his eyes that she’s only ever seen when he mentions Bruce’s parents, or how Bruce was before his parents' deaths. 

“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Miss,” he says. 

She wrinkles her nose at the formality; she never understood why he insisted on calling her ‘Miss’ when she wasn’t part of the bat-family and was hardly from anything that could be considered an esteemed background. “Thanks, Alfred. I missed you too.”

That’s a half truth—she’s missed him, but she wishes she didn’t have to see him again under such dire circumstances. 

He offers a small smile. “Did you get the seeds?”

“Yeah,” she chuckles, thinking back to the late spring and full summer she spent (painstakingly) setting up her garden. “The blueberries are doing well. So are the roses, despite a few early frosts.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Shutting the door behind her, he maintains his rigid, perfect posture. “Tea?”

“Oh, no, thank you.”

As Alfred leads her to the cave, he continues their previous conversation. “Chrysanthemums are in season now. When you return, would you like to take some sprouts from the garden?”

“That sounds great, thank you.” She tries to ignore the little, nagging voice in her head that says ‘ _If. If I return_.’ Even though she hasn't spoken them aloud, she feels their bitterness bite into her tongue.

Plants are a safe topic between them. She’s helped him out in the garden (at his begrudging hesitance in the beginning, of course) for almost as long as she’s been associated with the bat-family. Whenever she made a mistake, even if it was minor, she’d subject herself to an early morning weeding session, just to put her hands to good use as she considered what she could have done better. Alfred let her, commenting on how it was better than Damian’s impromptu hedge-trimming sessions. She’s thankful they can at least talk about this.

* * *

The door to the cave opens with a confident swing. She chokes on air when she sees Jason—he seems to have a similar reaction, like a whipped dog that’s been cornered. That scared expression of his only lasts two seconds, because his face hardens as he looks at her longer.

So he _does_ hate her. She doesn’t want to cry, but warm tears swarm behind her eyes. He turns without acknowledging her. 

_It's better this_ way, she tries to tell herself, to maybe soften the sting and salvage whatever is left of this terrible situation. The words do little to soothe the ache in her chest and the choking lump in her throat. 

She can only sit and look up at the stalactites and blink back the wetness in her eyes. 

* * *

Dick arrives with Babs a short time later. While he doesn't comment on it, she knows he’s seen the redness around her eyes. She doesn’t want to explain, so she goes looking for Bruce in his study. 

Yelling echoes throughout the large, empty hallways as she walks. It’s thunderous enough to make her wince, and as she gets closer, she deciphers it to be Jason and Bruce. She can hear them having a heated argument even without pressing her ear up against the door. 

“She said she was done, Bruce,” Jason’s voice, harder than she’s heard it in a while, bites out. 

Bruce is, as always, calm and collected. His tone is still gravelly, though; he was never one to take nonsense. “We needed her help. She agreed.”

“Because you fucking _cornered_ her in her own home.”

Never in a million years did she think Jason would defend her again. It may have been because he doesn’t want to see her, but she wants to think otherwise. _Maybe he still cares after all she’s done_. She doesn’t know if she should be happy or sad about that. 

“She understands the stakes here, Jason. And because of that, she chose to come back,” Bruce says. She can tell he wants that to be the end of the discussion. 

Jason doesn’t. “She still-”

She raps on the door lightly, and turns the handle even when no one allows her to come in. She’s afraid of what she sees—Jason is red in the face and looks ready to kill; Bruce refuses to back down. The loud clearing of her throat does little to cut the tension. “Everyone’s here. We can start the briefing.”

She leaves them to continue their argument or to follow her. She’d prefer the latter, because she wants to be back home as soon as possible. 

* * *

The briefing is simple: recently, a meteorite crashed into Russia containing large amounts of kryptonite; Lex Luthor wants to buy it off the Russians, an exchange that is scheduled tonight, if word in the underworld is to be trusted; they have to intercept the exchange for the safety of the Justice League. Their team is Bruce, Babs, Dick, Jason, and herself. It’s mainly a stealth mission, but if they have to use force, then so be it. 

That’s all great and simple, but there’s one major problem: the compound, an underground operative in St. Petersburg, is guarded heavily. As in, ‘several hundred armed and trained men’ _guarded heavily_. 

She massages her temples at the mere thought. When she agreed to come up, she knew it had to be something important to call her out of retirement, but this is rather ridiculous. She knows, just like Bruce probably knows, that she’s undoubtedly grown sloppy in her months gone; part of her wonders if someone else, maybe Cass, would be better suited for this job. 

Still, she doesn’t protest. She can’t, not when she’s already agreed and not when she owes Bruce so much. 

She figures that she wouldn’t be so alarmed if Jason would just stop staring holes into the side of her head. That's the real nerve-wracking thing plaguing her thoughts at the moment. 

After hearing his argument with Bruce, she doesn’t know what to think. Part of her hopes and prays and wants him to still love her—it’s the selfish part of her that makes her hate herself for even wishing that; the other (more logical) part of her argues that Jason was so adamant on her not being on the team so he wouldn’t have to work with her. 

She hopes for his sake that it’s the latter, because she knows she isn’t worth the trouble.

* * *

Jason’s big hand on her shoulder stops her from entering the jet just yet. His voice is low and soft in her ear. “You know you don’t have to do this, right?”

Her heart thuds in her chest and her lungs refuse to take in air. There isn’t an ounce of malice or hate in his tone; she’d thought he’d hated her, but the tenderness within his words suggests otherwise. She tries to calm herself down, squashing any hope rising in her throat. 

“I’ve already promised,” she says with equal amounts of gentleness in her voice. “We’ll be okay, okay?”

He swallows like it’s painful for him, before taking his warm hand off of her. She misses its presence instantly. “Yeah.”

* * *

In the jet, she braids her hair, then winds up the coil into a tight bun. It’s second nature—she did it all throughout her vigilante career and she did it during the summer too, when she worked in the hot, mosquito-ridden sunlight to perfect her garden. Her thoughts are elsewhere as she lets her hands act on muscle memory. 

Jason nudges her. His impossibly-blue eyes are trained on her neck. “You missed a piece.”

Her face burns; it’s not from embarrassment, not really, but instead because he looks like he wants to fix her hair himself, and because she knows that if he had, she would’ve let him. 

“Thanks,” she says, and undoes her progress to get it right this time. 

* * *

She hadn’t realized it, but she missed her suit. With the graphene under-layer tight against her skin, held in by a thicker Kevlar chestplate, she feels fucking invincible; the firm but flexible thin plated metal running from the occipital portion of her skull and down her spine is nicely protective while still maintaining a full range of movement. She doesn’t feel as exposed because she could take twenty standard handgun bullets to the same spot on her armor and still be unscathed. Everything still fits (even though she’s definitely gained a couple pounds). 

“What are you thinking about?” Jason asks. He’s eyeing her like he doesn’t know what else to say. 

Despite his hesitance, she leans in conspiratorially, drunk off of the feeling of indestructibility. “I might take my suit with me when I go back home.”

“Yeah?”

“Might also nab some batarangs.”

Somewhere up in the cockpit, Dick chuckles. She prays she didn’t say it loud enough for Bruce to hear. Jason laughs too, a real one that sends her heart fluttering and her lungs freezing. “I’ll help if you want?”

“Partners in crime?” she asks, and it feels good when he nods. They haven’t talked like this since before she told him she was leaving. 

She’s forgotten once again that she’s never stopped loving him; she hates the selfish part of her that hopes he never stopped loving her, too. 

* * *

St. Petersburg is cold. That within itself is an understatement; the air, even without the brutal addition of wind-chill, knifes into all exposed and _unexposed_ skin. Within five minutes of being out the jet, she can confidently say that her fingers and toes are numb; when she wrinkles her nose to get some feeling back into it, it feels like it’s frozen in place. Thank God she has goggles, or else her eyes would be teary as hell. 

“Miss this?” Dick asks with a grin. She doesn’t know how he’s not freezing his ass off with his ears uncovered and his suit thin and skin-tight. 

She breathes out a laugh that puffs white condensation, and is shocked by the frigid air rushing down her throat. “Oh, you bet.” 

Her only consolation is that Jason looks as miserable as she feels. He’s stiff against the perch they dropped onto, his hands clenched around his guns like they’ll keep him warm. Though she can’t see his face—he’s damn lucky to have a helmet that covers his entire head—she can tell that he isn’t too psyched to be in Russia mid-autumn. She can’t blame him for that in the slightest. 

For the third time that night, she adjusts the straps that criss-cross over her chest and hold her various crime-fighting goodies: a dozen low-grade grenades, two hunting knives, handcuffs, a compact grapple hook, and an extra steel wire for it with a tensile strength that could give Bane a tough time. The weight of all of it feels like an old friend hugging her. 

“Nervous?” Jason asks her when he notices her staring. 

“Always,” she hums and crouches closer to the edge. Below, a man dressed in a black suit and coat walks out from the building across from theirs. He carries a totally-not-suspicious duffel bag, one she knows contains ten pounds of kryptonite. “I have eyes on the target.” 

* * *

She definitely didn’t miss the sound of gunfire while she was gone. 

Currently, Dick has the target (and the duffel) and is heading back to the rendezvous point. That’s all well and good and all, but she and Jason are left to cover him. He needs enough time to make it back to the jet, and running with him would give them a harder take-off. 

That being said, they’re already in a shit situation. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Jason curses. She counts the magazines he has left—two—and realizes exactly why he’s cursing. They’re completely flanked and thirty-two bullets isn’t a whole lot when you’ve got maybe a hundred armed Russian guards out for blood. 

She lobs one of the last three explosives she has over their cover. The explosion rumbles around them, the sound just about killing her ears. Peaking around, an impact in her chest pushes her backwards. She’s surprised at the stinging feeling that accompanies the impact; between her Kevlar and graphene layers, the stray bullet is little more than a tiny bruise when she strips her suit off at the end of the day. The Russians, however, don’t fuck around when it comes to good bullets apparently. 

As she ducks back to cover, she glances at the hit. One more centimeter down and the shell currently wedged in the top sheet of Kevlar would have found the fusion in the plating where her armor was weakest; it’d be sunken into the lower half of her left lung. 

Jason sees it too; from the one shattered lens in his helmet, she sees his blue eyes wide with fear. She hates that look more than anything. 

They don’t have the time to dwell on the what-ifs, though. They need to get the fuck out before they’re actually dead. There’s a grate right below them; six bullets and the thing’ll be open and then they’ll be home free, hopefully. 

“Sewers?” she suggests. 

He doesn’t like the idea, she knows. The grate is a temporary solution, because it’s easy to see where they’ve gone and even if they’re down there, they’re going to be pursued. But, they don’t have a lot of options, and it’s the best they’ve got. Beggars can’t be choosers and all that. 

“Sure, can you-”

“Cover for you? ‘Course.” He shoves one of his pistols in her hand. As he focuses on the grate, she chucks another grenade over the wall. 

She feels it rock their cover once more. In fact, the thing tips inward; it takes all of her strength to brace it back into place. Careful to avoid leaving herself too open, she swings around the corner, firing a few shots. At the same time, an idea pops into her head. She groans, because she knows she’s about to probably get herself killed. 

“You first,” she tells Jason. He looks at her weirdly, maybe sensing something is off, but they don’t have the time to argue. 

Jason nods before dropping down the hole. Enemy fire starts up again from behind them. She hears the splash of his boots in the scummy water, and sighs. Looping the wire over and around the block, she’s ready to pull. 

“You coming?” Jason calls up to her. Her chest aches because he’s probably going to hate her for this. She thinks she can handle him hating her if she knows he’s at least _safe_. 

The lie tastes bitter on her tongue. “Yeah, just give me a second.”

She braces the wire rope over her shoulders and tugs. The barrier budges, slightly; for once she’s grateful for the hundreds of bullets being shot at them because all that extra force is helping her nudge this hunk of solid rock off balance, little by little. Her feet dig into the ground, thick-soled boots helping her gain traction even though the muscles in her back and arms and legs are screaming out. 

_Just a little more_ , she tells herself. She knows that if she succeeds, she may never get back to her little slice of heaven again and she may never see Jason again and she may never fucking breathe again. It’s worth it, it’ll always be worth it. 

She hears the enemy shouting. It’s indistinguishable amidst the spatters of gunfire here and there, but she assumes it’s something like ‘ _What the fuck are they doing?_ ’ Jason seems to have the same idea circling in his head. 

“Hey, what are you-” she hears him shout up to her, but it’s too late. The wall is tipping downwards. She couldn’t stop it even if she tried. 

She narrowly misses being crushed by it. The sound hurts her ears surprisingly more than any amount of fired bullets or detonated explosives ever have. But it’s not like she has much time to figure out why, because the gunfire starts back up again. 

She can only run like a bat out of hell and pray her armor will keep her protected. 

* * *

She’s been straight sprinting for ten straight minutes. Throughout that time, she’s heard Dick say something (unintelligible) and Jason curse, loudly, into the comms. Almost to joke, even though there’s no one around to share it and she couldn’t speak out loud if she tried, she thinks, _At least I’m not cold anymore_. 

Quite the opposite, actually. Fire is trapped beneath her skin; sweat burns uneven tracks down her face. She’s more out of shape than she realized, and her body shouts at her to stop. There’s a stitch in her side that’s been digging into her for the past two minutes, and it doesn’t look like it’s going away anytime soon. Just her luck. 

Her back aches, too. There’s no doubt in her mind that she has at least two dozen bullets buried in her Kevlar. She’ll have to have Alfred count how many welts she has on her back when she gets back. 

_If she gets back_. Right. 

She finally slows on a street lined with brick townhouses. The windows are dark and there aren’t any street lights, so she considers it a decent resting place. From what she can hear, no one’s following her. 

Her breath is loud—she sucks in air as fast as she can but it’s like inhaling pure ice. For a minute, she thinks she’s going to throw up; her throat is more parched than the fucking Sahara and she feels bile piling up her esophagus. But vomiting isn't exactly professional, especially in this line of work, so she forces in long, slow breaths through her nose to get the nausea under control. 

Miraculously, she’s still alive. She hasn’t planned this far ahead. 

“B, do you copy?” Her voice sounds too shaky, but she can’t do much about it at the moment. 

Radio silence for twenty eight seconds. She knows because she counts between bated breaths. Then, “Yes. Where are you?”

“Some- some street called ‘ _Pionerskaya Ulitsa_ ’ or something.” That was the last street sign she saw, in all honesty. She has no idea if she was still on it or not. 

“That’s miles from rendezvous,” Dick’s voice cuts in. He sounds frustrated. 

_Welcome to the club, buddy_ , she almost says.

Instead, she huffs, her pulse almost strangling her with each beat in her neck. “That was kind of the point, Nightwing. Get them away from the rendezvous, make sure everyone gets out safe-”

“And what the fuck about you?” Jason shouts over the comms. 

Okay, so he _is_ pissed. But he’s also alive, so she considers it a success in the end. 

“I’m fine-” She sees the red dot tremble to the right of her before it disappears, presumably behind her shadow. 

_Fuck_. 

They’ve got a sniper on her. Just her _fucking_ luck. She darts left to hide in an alley and hears the shot fire a quarter second later; the sting blooming beneath her right ribs indicates that she’s been hit. 

“Shit!” she hisses, her hand still on the comms. 

She reminds herself to breathe, letting years of experience and practicality to take the reins. Untying one of the straps previously used to hold her weapon stash, she ties it around her waist. There’s no time to check if it's deep or if it’s just a graze, she needs to leave, _now_. 

“What’s the situation?” Bruce’s voice is no-nonsense when he speaks. She unhooks the grapple and shoots it up. She thanks God when it catches so she can start climbing. “ _What’s the situation?_ ”

She grunts as she climbs up. “Sniper; I’m hit.” 

“Fuck, I’m coming to get you,” Jason says. Fear grips his voice where anger once held. “Oracle, show me the best route.”

Babs’ sure voice sounds over the comms and she knows she probably won’t have backup. “You’re about eighteen minutes away, even with shortcuts. It’s best if she just goes to Lazarevski bridge and waits until B picks her up.”

“And have her be a sitting duck? Yeah, no fucking way.” Jason’s hellbent on fighting. Always has been and always will be. She wishes he’d stop but knows she’d do the same if she was in his shoes. 

“Sounds good to me, O. Thanks.” She has to be the peacekeeper right now, or else tensions will rise within the team. Well, more than they already have. 

Even beneath her gloves, she feels the rope start to cut into the flesh of her hands. Finally, she hauls herself over the roof and curses when she sees that damned red dot again. Her body moves on its own, ducking behind a nearby chimney. The corner bricks are chipped with the shot that soon follows; shrapnel glances off the armored plate on her deltoid. 

“I’ve just sent you the best route,” Babs says in her ear. 

She pulls up the holographic map from her wrist monitor. Three quarters of a mile. Her side burns at the mere thought of racing over the rooftops. It’s a pretty popular bridge, too—she doesn’t really like the idea of that with civilians. She doesn’t have much of a choice. 

"Thanks,” she grits out. 

She makes sure to inch in line with the chimney, not poking out as she moves to the other side of the roof. A few shots strike past her—one manages to graze her arm from what she can tell—but she’s down and over the other side without any major incident. 

“I’ll meet you there,” Jay promises. 

She grapples across the next street and tries not to think about the last time he promised her something. 

‘ _I’ll see you tomorrow_.’ And then he didn’t show up. 

“Don’t,” she says. “I’ll be fine.” 

She can’t bear another broken promise from him. 

* * *

The bridge isn’t as big as she thought it’d be. It’s more of a pedestrian crossing, and it’s modern; two steel arches form a V-shape on the side closest to her, and with the steel wires spanning from said arches, she thinks it looks like a harp. 

That could also be the blood loss speaking. She doesn’t think the wound on her ribs is that bad, but exertion, even with the makeshift bandage she’s made, makes her blood pump faster and harder out of her. Two pints to a gallon, maybe—not life-threatening right now, but it will be if it stays open. All in all, it isn’t a good situation. 

She knows it’s her fault. She’s sloppy as all hell, and reckless, too. She let her goddamn emotions get the best of her and now Bruce’s meticulously-planned mission has gone up in flames. 

It takes her a moment to gather the courage to step out into the open. During it, her thoughts race rapid-fire through her aching skull. Exposure, even in knowing backup in the form of a heavily armed jet is on the way, is never a good feeling. Especially in their line of work. She checks, then double checks, that no one’s on her tail; this portion of the city is mostly residential, and seeing as it’s just after two in the morning, no one’s up. Well, aside from her and the team and the dozens, possibly hundreds, of soldiers currently combing the city. 

_That’s a comforting thought_ , she thinks, then steps into the open. She can’t hesitate now. 

Sticking to the shadows, she opts to hook the grapple on the side of the stone bank and slide down the side of the barrier. This way, she’s relatively hidden while still at the drop site. Halfway down, her arms threaten to give out. She winds the rope around her wrists to ensure she doesn’t fall—sure, she might dislocate them and she’ll definitely have bruises later, but it’s a better fate than plunging into the inky, icy waters some ten meters below. 

She thinks back to the stream at home and sighs. Her hand flies to activate her comms mouthpiece. 

“I’m at the bridge.” Her voice is so hollow and grim, she almost doesn’t recognize it. 

She sounds _tired_ , too, like she’s an octogenarian and has seen too much of the world. While she isn't exactly an eighty-year-old, she _is_ fucking exhausted and _has_ seen enough to make sleep a wishful thought most nights; it’s the whole reason she decided to leave. Steadying her breath, she realizes it smells like it’s about to snow. 

Her heart twists in her chest. What she wouldn’t give to be huddled up at home, with a book in her lap and a warm mug of tea next to her. She feels the farthest thing from that safety in this moment. 

Something heavy moves in the street above her. She bristles, tightening her grip despite her rapidly-numbing fingers. Metal on stone, solid-sounding. Grunting—male, if she had to wager—and the swish of heavy material. The same weighted grinding sound. Then, light footsteps on pavement, just barely audible among the trickle of water below her. 

She freezes, and forces herself to breathe quietly even though her resting heart rate could register as a panic attack. Her eyes are strained upwards, the night vision goggles showing only grainy green. 

A head pops over the ledge above her—her hands slacken to let her fall into the depths below—she recognizes the head as a helmet with a single glowing eye, the other one having been blown out—her hands catch the rope again to prevent her from falling. What is _Jason_ doing here? And why the hell is he in the _open_?

“Jesus,” she hisses under her breath. Her pulse is wild from fear. “Red, don’t just stand there, come down here!”

He nods, slinging his own hook over the side and sliding down. It’s only when he’s level with her that he speaks. “Are you okay?”

She glares at him as if to say ‘ _Really?_ ’ When that isn’t obvious enough, she replies in the only way she can: with sarcasm. “I’m _stellar_.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” he whispers harshly. Anger weaves its way back into his voice; she realizes he’s gotten new voice-scramblers in his helmet, because the pitches sound significantly deeper. “Where’d you get hit?”

“Ribs. Right side. Listen, can we do this in the safety of the jet?” She doesn’t mean to sound snappy, but she feels _wrong_ right now. Foreboding twists in her stomach. 

If Jason hadn’t been wearing a helmet, she’s sure she would’ve seen him clench his jaw in frustration. “ _No_. That was so fucking _bad_ what you did back there. Do you know how goddamn terrified I was? Christ, I thought you were _dead_.” 

“Red-”

“And another thing, why the fuck didn’t you respond in the comms after? You took so fucking _long_ and I just had to walk through the sewers and hope and pray that you were okay!” Jason’s voice has taken up a waver, one she knows isn’t from his helmet. 

“In my defense,” she says quietly. “The comms bugged out on me when I was running for my life. Plus, I was, y’know, _running for my life_.”

“And whose fault is that?” he shoots back at her. 

Bruce’s voice sounds in her ears. “T-minus forty seconds until I’m at the pick-up point; I’m coming from the north. Where are you?”

“Stone bank; you’ll see us dangling. Might be best to come from the west a little so you can fit in the river. Oh, and Red’s with me,” she says. It’s terse and as professional as she can manage when she really wants to howl and curse at the world for being so unfair. 

“I’ll be fifty seconds, then.”

“Oh, please take your sweet time,” Jason growls into the comms next to her. The reverberation both from the communication system and him being so close generate a shrieking noise that just about kills her head. “She’s only bleeding out.”

She shoots him a warning glare. “Red, be quiet for right now. At least until we’re in the clear.”

He shuts up, unhappily because he probably wants to scold her, but knowing that they’re still at risk for getting caught, hurt, and/or killed. Paranoia knots in her stomach about the sniper; she prays to God that whoever it was hasn’t followed them or picked up on their hushed voices. 

As they wait, she tries to calm down her breathing. Arguing with Jason has left her infinitely more breathless than she’d ever imagined it would. 

“Twenty seconds.” Bruce’s voice has a slightly harder edge to it. Great, she and Dick and Babs will have to play referee for the entire flight back home. Just how she wanted to spend the next eight hours. 

Beside her, Jason huffs. He holds another grappling hook in his hand. “Are you ready?”

She just nods, scanning the sky. The jet is sleek and too black to adequately blend in to St. Petersburg’s civilian brightness, even in the dead of night. It hovers over the water some twenty meters above. Hopefully they can ascend before the troops swarm them. 

The hook fires, the sound nearly drowned out by the water below them. He tests it when it lands; they both know it’s a perfect hit but better safe than sorry. Jason wraps a careful but sturdy arm around her waist, mindful the gash on her right side. 

Weightlessness, then the sensation of being pulled up as the line retracts. Her own hook snaps back into compact form when they surpass the ledge. 

Any other time, the view would have been beautiful. The lights trembled across the black waters below them, tracing the crests with neon reds and bright yellows and stark whites. In the distance, the city lights glow like lost, dying flames. But they don't have time to fully take it all in, not when they need to get out of Russia before they start an international conflict. 

“You go up first,” she says when they’re at the bottom opening of the jet. 

Jason lets out a humorless chuckle. “Like hell. The last time I went first, we separated.” 

“I can’t pull myself up, Jay.” The one eye she can see from inside his mask traces over her arms—she’s already wound the rope around her hands and wrists—and lands on the streak of torn graphene cloth soaked in red. He sighs like he isn’t happy about this.

“Okay, then. I’ll go first,” he says, seriousness etched into each word. Then, wryly, he adds, “Just don’t run off again, please.”

Without another word from either of them, he starts to climb up the last meter to the dimly lit cockpit. She hums, bearing the cold wind clawing at her face knowing it’ll only be another minute before she’s on her way back home.

That’s when she sees the wavering streak of red trained at them—its corresponding dot moves from her chest to Jason, whose relatively unprotected legs are still dangling. Her heart nearly stops when she recognizes where it’s trained. Iliac artery; if it’s severed, he’s as good as dead and Bruce might have two corpses on his hands. 

Jason’s already died once. He doesn’t need to die again. Her, on the other hand. . . . 

With a strength in her arms she didn’t think she still had, she climbs up just slightly, twisting around so her shoulder blocks the dot. 

The shot is deafening—she hears the tear of Kevlar and graphene and then the impact. Pain streaks through her a second later, lagging behind, but she doesn’t care. Jason doesn’t yelp out from the impact—as he pulls himself all the way up, she doesn’t see an ounce of red on his pants, which means she’s succeeded. 

She almost lets go in relief at that; Jason’s strong arms catch her slack and haul her up. 

“Shit, are they still shooting at us?” he asks as the panel closes beneath her feet. 

His hand grazes the entry wound in her back and an animalistic garble claws from her throat. She goes limp against him, her vision too too too bright with a million different stars from a million different universes. 

He pulls his hand away—she can’t see his face but she knows by the way his other arm stiffens around her waist that he sees the red on his glove. 

“Were you-”

“Hit again? Yeah.” 

She doesn’t know how she’s so calm about this. Before, when she was first shot, she was in Panic City, and that could have just been a graze. This? This is unquestionably life-threatening. 

Jason takes off his helmet with his bloodied hand. His fingers brush against his jaw on accident, leaving behind a streak of crimson. His eyes are wild and scared, and she wants to say that it’s okay, but she’d be lying. And she can’t lie to him. 

“You’re fine,” he says, and the sound is thick in his throat. His hand clenches against her waist like she’ll be gone forever if he lessens it for even a second. “You- you’re gonna be fine.”

He calls for Dick, and by that time, she knows she’s lost at least a gallon of blood. Maybe a gallon and a half. When he hoarsely cries for Bruce, too, she knows she’s got one more full gallon before she’s knocking on Death’s door. 

She hears Dick curse; she can’t remember the last time he’s said an actual, God-honest swear. “Doesn’t look like there’s an exit wound.”

Her head is hazy, but days and months and years of training has made her subconscious mind, even when highly compromised, work smoothly; no exit wound equals all that damned kinetic force rippling throughout her body. In other words, _not good_. Her vision warps and fuzzes like a glitchy carousel ride at the thought. 

_Oh yeah_ , she thinks. _I'm definitely suffering from blood loss now_.

She grips harder onto consciousness and tries to rationalize the pain away, knowing she’s fighting a losing battle. Her scapula’s probably shattered, hence the blinding white agony pulsing through her shoulder. If she’s lucky, it’s missed the suprascapular artery, but that also means the tip of her lung has probably been turned into a bloody, pulpy mess of tissue. That’s the best case scenario—that section of her lung can be surgically removed and with a few months of physical therapy, minus what it might take to repair her scapula and surrounding tendons and ligaments, she should be back to normal, more or less. 

But that’s only if she’s lucky, and she usually isn’t. 

“Shh, it’s okay, you’ll be okay.” Jason’s mouth is tight and his hands tremble as he strips the Kevlar from her. It sounds like he’s trying to reassure himself more than her. Her eyes close out of sheer need, just for a minute. She doesn’t realize she’s been babbling all her thoughts out loud.

A new set of hands presses over top of her left pectoral, but it feels like it’s separated by several layers of cloth. That’s _definitely_ not good. 

“No, there is an exit wound. Her breastplate just stopped it from going completely through.” Is that Bruce? Her vision is hazy but she forces her eyes open. His cowl isn’t off, and the stern frown of his mouth looks like an expression that the grim reaper to wear. She figures she’ll know soon enough. 

Despite that rather macabre thought, she gives a hazy thumbs up. “‘S good.”

Her almost drunken reply is ignored. 

“I need anesthetic,” he says. _To slow my heart rate_ , her logical mind says. Bruce looks at her with what she thinks is surprise. “It’s good that you’re still lucid.”

She wonders how much she’s said aloud. Her mind feels distinctly disjointed from her mouth, so she doesn’t have a good gauge. 

“Barely,” she manages to say. It hardly sounds like an actual word in the English language, or any other language for that matter. She thinks she’s smiling, but it’s difficult to tell. Nobody laughs at her poor attempt of a joke. 

Something hard nearly crushes her hand from pressure. At first she thinks it might be an IV line, but when she moves her eyes, she sees Jason. He’s pale, at least she thinks he is—it’s getting kind of hard to see because darkness is creeping up along the edges of her vision—and his eyes seek hers out desperately.

They’re so so so blue and if she dies here she wants to remember that color with her last breath. 

A dull pain sticks into her other arm though she barely feels it—she closes her eyes for what feels like a moment—when she opens them she can vaguely hear the _beep-beep-beep_ of her pulse on the electrocardiogram ( _When did that get here?_ she asks herself) and someone telling her to wake up—a light brighter than the fucking sun glares into her retinas—she sees what she thinks is Bruce’s silhouette right above her—something pricks into her chest over and over and over again, maybe stitches?—her eyes are finally able focus in the blinding light—electric blue streaks somewhere behind Bruce—Dick is helping with supplies—her head turns left—Jason is there—she smiles.

Squinting her eyes, she sees his forehead crinkled and his eyebrows furrowed. He looks deep deep deep into her like if he moves his eyes for even a second, she’ll disappear. She grips his hand as hard as she can to stay. 

Her body feels warmth slowly blooming throughout it. She doesn’t think that it’s normal, but maybe it’s her mind preparing her for death, like sleep for the freezing. Too late, and she’s slipping falling plummeting as her hand loosens. She’s not lucky and she’s never been lucky and she’s always known this. 

She looks past them into the shadows, unable to focus on the sad, scribbly faces of Bruce or Dick or Jason. She just tries to concentrate on the light and Jason’s frantic tapping on her hand to stay awake: _I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you_. . . . 

* * *

When she wakes up, she’s aware of something hard and plasticky stuck down her throat and something coarse and unbending restricting her limbs and something aching and sharp jabbed into her right arm. She tries shuffling around to relieve herself from all of the _somethings_ digging into her, but can’t seem to shake them off. 

Her eyes open slowly, blurred and disoriented from sleep. As they focus in the unholy white light filtering in somewhere from her left, she sees a semi-clear contraption mounded over her mouth.

 _Where is she? Where is Jason?_ She doesn’t know; for more than a second, she doesn’t know. Panic seizes her lungs. 

The sharp twinge in her esophagus grows unbearable as she fully shakes away the shackles of unconsciousness. She needs to get it out of here, she needs to get free and find Jason and make sure everything is okay. 

Desperately, her hands pull at the restraints and feel the rope cut into her skin. Her eyes widen to an impossible width—she tugs and jerks and yanks to get her hands free. There’s a _beepbeepbeepbeepbeep_ \- of her pulse to her right as she struggles; her heart rate is skyrocketing and a painful twinge in her chest begs her to stop, but she can’t. 

She arches her back up and lets it slam back down onto the thin mattress below her. The straps budge a little further down her hands, despite rope-burn rubbing some of the skin away. It stings and she hisses—it’s more of a gargle with this damned thing in her throat. 

But she doesn’t care she doesn’t care she doesn’t care about the pain; she needs _out_. 

Heavy steps sound from her right, not in the room but in a nearby hallway—her instincts tell her she has maybe fifteen seconds to get free and fight a possible assailant. She hates those odds but doesn’t have much of a choice. 

If possible, her heart speeds faster: _beebeebeebeebeebeebee_ \- 

Writhing, she bites down hard on the plastic violating her mouth. She braces her feet the best she can at the edge of the bed and pushes herself up. The black bands around her wrists pull down on her, the gnawing sting moving further down her hands the only indication that she’s making progress. 

Her hands slip out from their restraints—her shoulders and head jerk back, hitting either the wall or the headboard. She doesn’t even register the jolt of pain echoing throughout her upper body, focused around her left shoulder blade. 

She tears at the stalks of plastic pushed into her—they’re wrenched from her throat and drag against the inside of her trachea—she tastes blood when she finally gets them out of her—she rips the IV line and blood transfusion out from her arm with a grunt—the electrocardiogram flatlines as it’s disconnected: _beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep_ —little red flecks spot her gown and the sheets and the floor and she doesn’t care—the door swings open as she claws at the straps around her ankles—she grabs the IV pole as a weapon—she sees it’s Jason, haggard-looking with worry stitched harshly into his face—she forces herself to breathe because he's _okay_.

Right, the mission. The bullets, the streets, the argument, the blood, the jet. She sinks back into the stiff pillows of the bed. 

His blue eyes flick over the room, surveying the damage. The blood transfusion bag, in being jostled from her arm, is splattered across the tile floor. Red creeps further and further from her bed, reaching the plastic breathing device before overtaking that in crimson, too. 

Slowly, Jason steps forward, looking at her like he’s afraid to make a sudden movement. She hates that look and she hates that she’s surrounded by white and she hates the dull, aching pain echoing throughout her body as all her previous strength flees. The hand clutching the stand falls limp at her side.

“Where- what happened?” she says. Her throat is so dry and ruined that the words, though few, hurt to get out. The pulse throbbing in her neck makes her want to scream and claw it out. 

He takes a few more steps toward her. There’s something awful in the way he regards her: like she’s a ghost of someone he loved and like she’ll disappear if he gets too close. Jason clears his throat, still awestruck, before he speaks. 

“You almost- you almost died.” His voice is soft and raw—she wonders if he’s been crying. Jason ventures closer, collapsing into a chair to her left that she hadn’t paid attention to before. 

“Are you okay? Is everyone else-”

“You almost _died_ ,” he repeated. Christ, she’s never seen him look so _broken_ before. Selfishly, she wants him to take her hand and tap ‘ _I love you_ ’ into it again, until the end of time. He doesn’t. “Why the fuck would you care about me or about anyone else when _you almost fucking died_?”

She flinches, because he sounds livid, but also because she knows it’s directed more at himself than at her. “But are you _okay_?”

He huffs. “I’m uninjured, if that’s what you mean.”

“Jason-”

He looks at her again, and the blue in his eyes is cold, colder than the Russian air had been. His words are just as sharp. “I had to watch you lose consciousness—I had to feel your hand go limp in mine—I had to watch as you just kept _bleeding_ -”

His voice cuts off. The anger fades out as something more painful takes its place. Mourning is the only thing left in Jason’s eyes, like he’s been to her funeral and seen her lifeless and peaceful, laying among lilies and satin. She hates the way the spark leaves him so suddenly; she’d rather him be fucking pissed at her until the end of time than to collapse in on himself like this. 

“I-” ‘ _I did it to save you_ ,’ is what she wants to say, but can’t form the words. She knows he’ll hate himself even more if he knows she did it for him. “I’m sorry, Jason.” 

She holds out her open palm. Jason doesn’t take it. He just looks at her chest—she follows his gaze and sees crimson blooming across her left pectoral. The sharp twinge in the area alerts her that in her disorientation, she must have torn open her wound again. “Shit, your stitches. I- I’ll get Alfred, okay?” 

He leaves without another word. Her hand is left alone, open to the air, and her head is fuzzy with pain and grief. 

* * *

Jason stands in the corner of the room while Alfred takes out her old, ripped stitches and sews new ones in. He keeps a steady watch on her, and for once, she can’t seem to read him. She’s not sure if she wants to know what he’s thinking about her anymore. She just prays he doesn’t blame himself. 

“How long was I out?” she asks Alfred softly. She doesn’t really want to talk to Jason, not when a single word that leaves his mouth breaks her heart. 

Jason answers before he can get the words out. “Two days.”

Terse, curt, caustic. Like she isn’t worth more than two words. She winces, knowing he’s probably right about that last thought. And it’s not like she’d correct him on it otherwise.

“Oh.” 

That’s all she can say, really. She wants to apologize and she wants to beg for forgiveness and she wants to just go back home. She can’t bring herself to do anything but sit and stare straight ahead, counting each pulse to take some of the sting away. 

“Master Jason, will you please stop _brooding_ over there and hand me the scissors?” Alfred asks, a lilt of humor dipping the sentence down in the middle. She would have laughed if she hadn’t felt so sick to her stomach. 

She’s grateful for it all the same, even if it does little to diffuse the tension in the room. 

* * *

Dick comes in four days later. He brings with him a bouquet of flowers—yellow pansies and baby’s breath and white roses. When he sets them in a vase beside her bed, she can smell the sickly-sweet scent of the roses, and she wants to vomit. 

“Glad to see that you’re up,” he says. The smile he has looks genuine enough, though she knows he’s wearing it slightly out of pity more than anything else.

Dick’s eyes flick back to Jason, who’s still sitting in the corner of the room in silence. He hasn’t said anything to either of them, didn’t even greet Dick when he came in with a big grin. Dick still smiles, though it’s lessened significantly, and the knitting of his eyebrows tells her that he doesn’t know what to think of their current situation. 

She clears her throat, trying to match his enthusiasm. “Yeah, you guys can’t, uh, can’t get rid of me that easily, you know.”

Dick turns back to her, and she can tell that he’s grateful for the conversation. She asks how Babs is doing and his face lights up; she listens to him, mainly because she’s bored out of her mind and craves some semblance of normalcy, though a small portion of her mind wonders if Jason will ever get that precious look on his face when talking of her.

She doubts he will.

* * *

Dick leaves some two hours later, stating how he needs to get back to Blüdhaven soon to make dinner and check up on Babs. She understands, and says goodbye to him with a soft smile, before the room is bathed in silence again.

She glances at Jason, who’s looking right back at her, through her, like she’s already gone. 

His eyes are so blue it hurts to look into them. She can’t tell what’s swirling within their deep as Jason sits in the corner of the room. But she loves them, loves him, so she doesn’t mind the sting, even if they might be the death of her one day.

* * *

At night, she looks at herself and dreams she’s back home. It doesn’t last very long, though. She betrays herself. Her reflection is maenadic, her hair wild around her and eyes sunken into the dark, hollow sockets of her skull. She never looked so shitty at the cabin, even when she was drowning in grief. 

She has to find other things to occupy her time with. 

There’s nothing else to do but think, unfortunately. Somehow, that’s even worse than reminiscing about better days. 

* * *

The habit she’d developed while at the cabin—waking up at absurdly early hours—continues to fester during her time in the Manor. Most days, she’s up before the sun even rises, left alone to her thoughts and the world so clothed in black it might make Bruce jealous. 

She exhales through her nose in a silent, half-hearted laugh. It wasn’t that funny, even to her sleep-deprived brain, and she doesn’t want to wake Jason up. 

Because when he’s asleep, his blue eyes are closed and his breathing is even and audible. The frown of his mouth and the furrow of his brow softens, and he looks to be at peace for once. Her fingers ache to run through his soft tresses and to brush against his tired skin, even though they know that that’s an impossibility. 

* * *

Damian comes in four days after Dick. He’s in clothes that are styled more for an adult than they are a child, but seeing as he likes them, she decides not to comment. 

There’s a haughty sort of glint in his green eyes when he enters the room—that emotion is something ever-present in Damian’s demeanor, and while it can be annoying as hell to work with, he’s got every right to be confident in himself. She was expecting that look, but she wasn’t expecting pain to flash briefly over his face, either. 

It’s gone as he approaches her bed. His posture is stiff, perfect, and she can tell he’s trying to maintain an air of detachment and severity that Bruce would wear in this situation. He glances over at Jason, and his eyes narrow; Jason’s own furrow into a look of similar intensity. 

They’ve never exactly gotten along, despite Damian having a lot of the impulsiveness that Jason had when he donned the Robin mask. 

Their silent stare-off only lasts to a slow count of seven. She knows because she marks off each number in her head and tries to breathe, anticipating the need to break up a conflict. But Damian is the first to end the shared gaze. He turns back to her. 

“That was incredibly stupid of you,” he says as if to scold her like a child. She doesn’t have the heart to remind him that their social roles are ironically switched at the moment. 

“Yes,” she agrees instead.

Damian blinks. He was probably expecting a fight, or at least for her to defend her actions, but they both know that there’s nothing for her to really defend in this circumstance. He rubs his palms together as if to get a hold of the situation again. 

“Getting shot like that is highly unprofessional.”

Her head bobs on its own in a mark of affirmation. “Also true.”

“Do you also agree that Father should have never called you back into action, then?” he asks. 

This is a loaded question, maybe for everyone in the room at the moment; Damian will undoubtedly tattle anything she says back to Bruce—she knows that her answer could potentially make or break her relationship with the rest of the bat-family—and if she were to judge Jason’s potential hang-ups on the way he bristled and focused his intense gaze on her, it’s going to impact what he thinks of her, too. 

Diplomacy is always the best route, especially when there is some emotional truth to back it. 

“I was definitely unqualified for the mission given my time off,” she starts, meeting Damian’s green eyes to show that she won’t back down. “And I do definitely agree that that lack of qualification and general personal inadequacy are what botched the mission. I take full responsibility for what happened. However, I stand by the choices I made that night, just like I stand by Bruce’s decision to include me.”

Her eyes flick over to Jason, and she sees that his jaw is hardened into a tight, displeased angle. Damian, however, looks rather relieved. 

“I will put in a word to Father, then, that you should no longer be considered for these kinds of jobs,” he says matter-of-factly. 

Anyone who didn’t know the prim and proper boy would have quaked at the idea, or else felt extreme indignation at being threatened by a twelve year old, but she understands the knowing, almost coy turn of his mouth; that was him saying ‘ _I don’t want you to get hurt anymore, so let me make sure that you aren’t in a situation where you get hurt again_.’

She smiles at him. “I wouldn’t expect anything less, Damian. Thank you.”

He gives a terse nod, turning on his heel. Damian doesn’t even stop to accost Jason in any way on his journey back out. 

When he closes the door, silence falls back over the room. Now it’s just her and Jason, again. 

* * *

The flowers Dick brought are dead within a week. Their petals are either dried or rotting. Alfred asks her if she wants them to stay or go. She doesn’t recognize her voice when she tells him “Throw them away, please.”

One look at Jason and she knows that he doesn’t recognize her voice either. 

* * *

Four more weeks before her leaving is even considered. Four more weeks of Jason’s hard looks and twitching fingers and sharp words, until she can leave his life forever, because she’s obviously not good for him. 

* * *

It wouldn’t be so bad if he just left, but Jason’s intent on keeping her in his line of sight at all times. He doesn’t leave the room when Alfred checks up on her and cleans her wounds; he doesn’t leave when she eats, and when he makes his rounds for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Alfred’s gotten into the habit of bringing two of everything; Jason doesn’t leave at night, instead opting to drag two chairs together and lay there, eyes trained on her until they both fall asleep.

He doesn’t make much conversation, either. She longs for the days when she and Jason just talked about nothing and laughed at stupid jokes. Those times are long behind them. 

One morning, when she’s feeling particularly tired of the constant surveillance, she asks, “What, are you afraid I’ll run?” 

“Every day,” Jason says with a humorless smile. 

That shuts her up. 

* * *

A week left. 

She wonders if things will really go back to normal if she leaves for her home. She doesn’t think so, but it’s nice to think about. 

Jason is. . . Jason. As per usual. She hopes that when she does eventually leave, he won’t love her anymore so he won’t be hurt by her anymore; it’ll kill her, but she’d rather die in his place a million times over than have him go through an ounce more of hell. 

The thought makes her want to pace, or walk, or run. It’s the worst at night, because she can’t shut out her thoughts in the silence. 

This night in particular, when she can hear the gunfire and Jason's yelling echoing in her skull, is one of the worst. So, when Jason’s asleep, she carefully pulls the covers from over her legs. Her feet hit the cold tile for the first time, and the feeling of it shocks up her legs. Her knees are weak from excessive bed rest, but clinging to the IV pole yields some stability. Careful not to wake him up, she turns off the electrocardiogram before unhooking it from her finger. 

Then, she steals off into the darkness, eager to walk until she’s tired enough to sleep. 

The giant, old windows cast shadowy grids over her body as she steps down the hall; she feels like she really is in a prison. Darkness clings to everything like a distraught lover, even her. It's suffocating, but she forces herself to breathe nonetheless. At least the carpet feels nice between her toes. Better than tile, for sure. 

She makes her way to the library, because her head feels as thirsty for something to fill it as her throat does for water. She doesn’t want to think for a while—she’s been doing a damn lot of thinking lately and it’s only ruined her. Right now, she needs a distraction, something to fill the long hours of monotony and white and silence so she doesn't lose her goddamn mind.

It smells like musty old books in the large room. Wall to wall, floor to ceiling, are rows and rows and rows of books that she can’t wait to get her hands on. Being confined for so long has made the idea of feeling dry pages beneath her fingertips a thrill. 

The only problem is that she doesn’t know where to start, and she knows deep down that neither decisiveness nor indecisiveness will make her happy.

A shout startles her, and she stumbles, clutching onto the IV pole to balance herself. It’s Jason; he’s woken up, undoubtedly seen her empty bed, and assumed the worst. She winces. He yells out for her, the desperation of it cutting into her lungs farther than any damn bullet could. 

Heavy, heavy footsteps sound down the hall. Fatigue sinks into her, and she succumbs to its demands, lowering herself onto the floor. It’s hard beneath her. She thinks of her shitty mattress back at the cabin, the one where every spring is felt no matter how often she shuffles around, and she longs for it more than anything. She wonders if Jason would call her crazy for missing it and instantly regrets the thought. 

The pounding footsteps sound close, and he’s screaming her name like it’s a ticket to salvation after he’s been eternally damned. She no longer has a heartbeat; it’s only an ache, reminding her that she’s regrettably alive. Her cheeks are wet—when did she start crying? 

“I’m in the library,” she says as loudly as she can. The words are warbled from the thick knot in her throat. 

A pause, then the loud banging starts again, faster this time, getting nearer and nearer. Jason’s through the door like a rocket, scanning the large room in a frenzy. His eyes are wild as they land on her. He’s heaving like he’s just run several dozen miles and he takes strong, sure steps over to her tired body. In an instant he’s by her side. Worry scrambles over his face, drawing his brow together and cinching his mouth into a tight frown. 

“Are you- are you hurt?” he asks, his hands clasping tightly around her shoulders. 

She sucks in a sharp breath at the pain shooting through the left side of her chest. “Jason, your hands-”

He retracts them immediately like he’s been burned, or, more like he’s burned her. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I- Christ.”

“It’s okay,” she says quietly. Warm tears still trace down her cheeks, catching on her jaw. 

One of his hands reaches to brush the droplets away but freezes an inch from her skin. He’s afraid to touch her now because he thinks he might break her, and suddenly she can’t breathe. Jason, who has always been comfortable with her and who has always been someone she can be comfortable with, is now miles and years away from her; it’s like they’re strangers again. 

How did things come to this? How did they end up this way?

 _Her fault her fault her fault her fault her fault_. . . .

“It’s okay,” she says again. Even though it’s not. 

* * *

Alfred eyes the precarious tower of books on the stand next to her bed when he walks in the next morning. He sees tiredness nesting in dark smudges beneath their eyes; she watches, rather hazily from sleep deprivation, as his forehead furrows and he connects the dots. 

After the previous night’s panic, she and Jason couldn’t sleep. She managed to convince him to go back and pick out a few books once he’d escorted her back to her bed—she remembers how he only occasionally grazed his fingers over her body, and only when she stumbled. It had taken a lot of persuasion on her part, ending with a promise that she wouldn’t leave the room again. Even then, he’d been hesitant to leave her alone. 

It was a peace treaty, in the end, and they both knew it. 

She remembers how strange it felt not to have him in the room; his presence had been a constant in her life for the past few weeks, maybe the only constant that she partially enjoyed, as unrelenting as he had been. Being alone in the room felt like being condemned to purgatory. 

She was relieved when he came back, a dozen or so books stacked neatly in his arms. They read until the red morning sun broke over the black horizon, and then they read some more. In some sick way, it felt like old times again, when Jason would sneak Shakespeare books onto slow patrols and she’d tease him about it but still look over his shoulder. 

It’s the books that made Jason open up to her once more—she knows that he never really closed himself off to her, more like he just turned away, ever so slightly—but now he’s facing her again like she’s his sun. 

She thinks that maybe she should have made him hate her more instead of trying to make peace. Maybe then he could let her go. 

Her face twists at the thought, and Alfred asks her if her shoulder is bothering her. She shakes her head. Black words swim in her vision as he cleans the entry wound on her back. Jason watches her tiredly, the blue in his eyes finally softened into something sweet. 

* * *

Her stitches are finally out. What’s left are puffy and pink scars that are sensitive to touch. She knows that eventually, instead of being convex, they’ll be concave little divots that burrow into her skin. She’s had worse, and these are far from her ugliest marks to show for it. 

Three days. Three days until the prospect of her leaving becomes an adamant reality. 

Outside, it’s raining. She’s reminded of her last night in Gotham as the droplets tear down the window pane. She thinks Jason is, too, because of the way his eyes dart from the ashen world outside to her surrounded in white sheets. 

He’s edged his chair closer to her in the past few days, like she won’t notice. But she does, she _does_ , and she’s twisted up with happiness and guilt, because he shouldn’t love her anymore. Not after the emotional hell she’s put him through, not after all of the sleepless nights and torrential downpours of tears and aching longing. She doesn’t deserve his love. She doesn’t deserve _him_. 

* * *

Bruce comes in later that day. He looks older than the last time she’s seen him, but that might be because his cowl hides the creases in his forehead and the lines around his eyes. When he sees her upright in bed, the smallest smile flickers over his lips.

“Good to see you’re awake,” he says. 

His eyes dart over to Jason, who’s bristling in his chair. He blames Bruce even though it was ultimately her decision to join in the mission. And Bruce, the man who adopted Jason and cared for him and tore after the Joker once he’d been killed, accepts the hatred in Jason’s eyes with only the barest buckling of his shoulders. 

She coughs. “It’s definitely good to _be_ awake.” 

A joke, because she hates how heavy it feels in the room. 

“Can I speak to you alone?” Bruce asks her. His eyes flick over to Jason, anticipating a probably-violent response at the mere prospect of what he suggests. 

He’s right to. Jason stands up abruptly, the chair pushing back into the wall from the sudden movement. She recognizes the stance—his back is hunched and his arms, while not in front of him, are slightly bent at his sides. He’s ready to fight Bruce, if it comes down to it. 

“Like hell I’m leaving you alone with her,” he snarls. “She’s in that fucking bed because of _you_.”

“Jason,” she says in a quiet voice. Some of the tension leaves his body, his hands uncurling from tight fists at the mere sound of her calling his name. He still wears a dangerous frown. “At the end of the day, it’s my fault I’m here.”

She watches as his mind mulls over her answer, going through every possibility and every retort. His hands drop limply to his sides once he realizes she’s right. He slumps back down into his seat like he knows it’s true but can’t muster up the anger to direct at her. “He’s still the one who came to you and gave you the fucking idea to go on that mission. He’s still the one who forced-”

“He didn’t force me to do anything.”

“You retired. He knew that, I knew that, everyone- everyone _knew_ that. He shouldn't have dragged you back in.” Jason’s voice is hoarse. Weeks of trained stoicism with only the slightest releases of true emotion here and there are finally cracking through. 

He’s been keeping it buried and stuck within him, trying to make her feel better but breaking himself down in the process. He needs to let it _out_. She needs him to let it out. 

“I helped because I wanted to,” she says.

“Because you felt you _needed_ to,” Jason corrects. His jaw is clenched in a tight angle, eyes trained in his lap like looking up at her would dissolve him. 

She sighs and compromises, because he isn’t _wrong_ , per se. “Yes. And that feeling isn’t going to change.”

“You shouldn’t feel the need to do anything other than be happy.” The rawness of his words strikes her hard in the stomach; he still cares, he still cares, he still cares. Why does he still care about her? 

“Jason.”

She revels in the word on her tongue, saying it slowly, savoring each consonant and vowel. She wants to say his name for the rest of her life, though she knows she isn’t lucky or deserving enough to have the pleasure. 

He looks up from his lap, _finally_. When she sees him, _really_ sees him, a lump grows in her throat. His face is twisted up, eyebrows bent up and mouth bent down. Something in him is just so obviously _broken_. Seeing him like that, cracked, trying not to cry, is what makes her heart completely shatter in her chest. 

“What?” he asks softly.

“Come here.”

Her arms open wide, because she needs to be his rock. She needs to give him strength; he can’t always be strong for the both of them, and neither can she, but together. . . they can be strong _together_. 

Jason’s hesitant, though. His face crumples into something like unfiltered panic, like the mere idea of getting closer to her, of _touching_ her, terrifies him to his core. She hates the way he looks at his hands like they’re weapons and she hates the way he looks at her like she’s porcelain. 

“I don’t think I can.” 

“Yes,” she says as gently as possible. “Yes, you can. I’m giving you permission.”

Jason’s blue eyes glance over to Bruce, whose own are directed at the door out of politeness and privacy. “I don’t want to hurt-”

“You’re not going to hurt me, Jason,” she says. 

He could never hurt her. Nothing he can do could ever hurt her, not really. She needs him to see that, to see that he isn’t a monster and to see that he didn’t have to isolate himself from her. She wants him to stop loving her, but she also knows that that will come eventually. Right now, he needs her like she needs him. 

Jason seems to come to the same solution in his head. He still approaches her like she’s a child he doesn’t want to frighten—she smiles at him warmly, stretching her arms wider. It takes ages for him to lean down over. He does it gingerly, so slowly that she thinks he’s going backwards at some point. She can smell his sweat and the faintest traces of his shampoo. 

The second his skin touches hers, though, all of that delay is reversed and he sinks into her. His large arms circle around her waist, mindful of the tender scar there, but holding her tightly so as never to let her go again. Jason buries his head into her uninjured shoulder; she feels wetness trace down her neck as she realizes he’s crying. Impossibly large shudders wrack through his body, trembling into her with a simultaneously impressive and pitiful strength. 

Her hands stroke his hair, and she murmurs soft ‘ _It’s okay_ ’s and ‘ _We’re alright_ ’s and ‘ _I love you_ ’s. He nestles further into her, gladly accepting the light touches and reassuring words. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers into her skin.

She presses her lips against the top of his head. “You have nothing to be sorry about, Jason.”

He just holds onto her tighter. 

* * *

She and Bruce have their one-on-one talk later that night. Jason begrudgingly leaves, but not without a warning glare at his once-father and not without one final red-eyed, wistful glance in her direction. She hopes that later tonight, they can continue to hold each other, even if it’s selfish of her to do so. 

Bruce is quiet for a moment, before saying, “I’m sorry I couldn’t visit sooner.”

“Don’t worry about it, Bruce, honestly. I know what this life’s like. It doesn’t wait for anyone.” She doesn’t blame him, in all honesty. Not for anything, really. Yes, he’s rough around the edges and sometimes makes questionable life (and parenting) decisions, but at the end of the day, he knows how to restrain himself. She admires that quality. 

“How have you been?” He sounds surprised that her voice isn’t accusatory now that Jason isn’t present. 

“I’ve been better, but not bad.” 

His face morphs into an interesting mix of apprehension and relief; with his eyebrows furrowed, slightly quirked up, the line of his mouth almost softened, he looks like an actual person, and not someone wearing a mask of apathy. “I’m glad to hear it. I trust Jason and Alfred have been treating you well?”

“Yeah. I’d definitely give Wayne Manor a five on Yelp,” she says while cracking a grin. Bruce doesn’t know what to do with that line, and she laughs. 

“That’s . . . good?”

She missed Bruce’s antisocial habits. While he was relatively stoic on the outside, most of that was based on childhood isolation and the need to appear put together. He, having absolutely no knowledge of the internet or common slang makes for interesting conversations, makes regular conversations a riot. 

“Yeah, very good. The best, even.”

A lengthy pause. “Has Alfred told you about the, er, schedule?”

“Two more days before I have a full mental and physical evaluation. Once that’s completed, the amount of physical therapy I’ll need can be determined, and then an estimated time frame of when I can go back home.” She’s been repeating the words in her head for four weeks, so she knows them by heart. 

“Good,” Bruce says, looking a little more comfortable. “Clark’s asked me to thank you for putting your life on the line for him.”

“Tell him that it wasn’t a problem, really.”

That’s a lie and they both know it. Her body is pretty much ruined at this point—the surface level scars may have healed, but her scapula has been shakily put back together, her left teres minor torn. She isn’t a leftie, so it’s not completely devastating, but she will undoubtedly feel the echoing pain for years, even decades, to come. 

No, she won’t ever be the same. 

Bruce clears his throat at the awkward silence. In a lower voice, he says, “I know that you took that second bullet for Jason.”

The jet has cameras all over it—she’s also quite sure that each of the assorted masks/helmets/cowls the members of the bat-family wear have little ones in them, too—so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to her that Bruce has mulled over the tapes and seen what she did. But it does, _but it does_. She doesn’t know if it’s disapproval in his voice or thankfulness, though she jumps to her own defense anyway. 

“I couldn’t let him die again, Bruce.” She doubts she would have ever sounded so strong or so sure when standing up to Batman before all of this. As it is, she’s shaking slightly, and she knows he notices it because he notices _everything_.

“I know,” he says, and his voice is thick. It’s thankfulness, she decides, because the furrow in his brow has lessened into something that looks suspiciously like relief. “I saw where the shot was aimed. Thank you.”

She relaxes back into her pillows, not realizing she had been tensed upright. “I’d do it again if I had to.”

“Yes?”

“Yeah.”

Bruce ponders this, one of his hands rubbing harshly over his mouth. “Does he know that you-”

“No,” she says, not even letting him get the words out. “And I don’t intend to tell him because it’ll eat him alive even more if I do.”

“Of course.” A pause, as he looks into her. The dreaded _p_ _sychoanalysis_. She doubts he’s even turned it off, and is now, instead, just failing to disguise it. “How- how has he been?”

For what he usually lacks in upfront warmth, he makes up for in little gestures like this. Bruce still _cares_ about Jason, even if Jay doesn’t think he does. 

“He’s been, well, it’s been rough,” she admits. 

“Alfred’s told me that he won’t leave the room.” 

She sighs. The cheerful air she’d been trying to keep melts away. “Yeah. Yeah, he hasn’t let me out of his sight, either.”

“Is it- do you think he’s impeding your recovery? I can say something to him,” Bruce says. He’s speaking as if he’s blindly cutting wires to diffuse a bomb, searching for some kind of hint that will lead him in the right direction before everyone’s killed. 

“You really think he’ll listen to you?” she asks, a hint of a grin painted across her lips.

“That’s. . . true.”

“I don’t mind his company, Bruce,” she says. It’s rough, because she doesn’t know how to feel; she wants to make it easier for Jason to let go so he can move on, but at the same time, she’s selfish and he’s made it clear that he’s not too fond of forgetting her either. “At first it was unnerving, because we didn’t talk. But now we are and God, I missed seeing him.”

“Alright,” Bruce says. He looks deep in thought. “Can you keep an eye on him for me?”

“Always.” 

* * *

Later that night, Jason pulls his chair all the way up to her bed. He rests his chin on his arms, which are crossed over her sheets. 

The lights are off and the room is bathed in shadows, but from the windows to her left, hesitant moonlight traces over them. She marvels at the white kissing along his brow and cheek and jaw and lips; a part of her is envious that she can’t do the same. 

They don’t speak. He just looks up at her with a look she hasn’t seen in a while: _adoration_. Her chest aches—she wants she wants she wants, but by God, she can’t she can’t she can’t. 

Still, her hands find his hair. They twist and curl and burrow between the thick locks, her fingertips teasing his scalp with light scratches. Every now and then, she’ll sweep a hesitant finger over the tips of his ears, or else draw a loopy design on the back of his neck. Jason sighs into her hands, a small, sleepy smile gracing his lips. 

_This is okay_ , she tells herself. She’s just helping him get out his feelings, helping him relax after the hell she’s put him through. 

Jason needs her to be by his side; even if it kills her, she’ll always be there for him. A small part of her knows that she’ll have to give him up again, that they’ll have to fragment apart like before, that she’ll have to bear Jason falling out of love with her. Those kinds of thoughts make these small actions, where her true affection for him shines through, unhindered, claw into her. 

_This is okay_ , she tells herself again, when he captures one of her hands into his own and brings it to his lips. He closes his eyes and doesn’t move her hand again, keeping it pressed against his mouth all throughout the night. 

Eventually, when her own eyes close, she falls into a warm and soft sleep. 

* * *

The next morning, Jason is still asleep when she wakes up. They haven’t moved. 

His lips are warm and chapped against her skin; she can feel each precious breath he takes in and out, and she shivers because of it. 

She doesn’t move her hand away from him even though she knows she should. 

* * *

One day left. She doesn’t know why she’s counting down; she won’t be magically healed by tomorrow, and she probably won’t be able to go home unsupervised. If she’s given a choice, her heart will say Jason, but her mouth might just say Dick instead. 

Jason needs to move on from her; she isn’t good enough for him and she hopes he knows that. If she says him, she’ll just be prolonging the inevitable; she’ll just be making more emotional ties, which will cause the eventual break apart even messier. And Jason, her sun, her moon, her everything, doesn’t deserve another ounce of heartbreak. 

At the moment, he’s reading beside her quietly, totally engrossed in the plot. She’s also supposed to be reading, but whenever she tries to concentrate, the words blur and fuzz, so she gives up instead. 

Her eyes are trained outside, where the honeyed sun makes the bleak, snowless winterscape seem a bit more hospitable. It hasn’t snowed more than an inch, and she finds herself missing the foot of snow she’s used too. She wonders how the cabin is, and if the pipes have frozen (she did remember to turn the water off before she left, right?) or if the roof has caved in from snow or if-

A warm hand grabs hers, shocking her from her thoughts. Jason’s clasped their fingers together, and he offers her a shy smile. The blue of his eyes reminds her of a cloudless sky in the summer—it warms her right down to the tips of her toes. 

“What’re you thinking about?” he asks her tenderly.

“Hm? Oh, just the cabin,” she says, the corners of her mouth lifting up. His own smile drops a bit, and his hand squeezes hers like she’s slipping away from him. “You’re welcome to come up with me, y’know?”

She hates herself for saying that because she’s supposed to be letting him _go_ , and yet she grips onto his hand tighter. For a minute, Jason looks like he wants to decline, but then his face softens at the last second. “I just might take you up on that offer.”

She concludes that she’s selfish and going to hell for it when she grins at his answer. 

* * *

Jason’s antsy that night. His hands won’t stop drumming on the edge of her bed, and his leg bounces restlessly. He stares off into space, and every now and again, his brow furrows and relaxes and the corners of his mouth lift and fall, like he’s debating with himself. 

Now it’s her turn to ask. “Jay, what are you thinking about?” 

He starts, his mouth curving into a smile when he looks at her. “Oh, it’s a secret. Don’t worry about it.”

“Jason,” she frowns, but the lead wrap of guilt draped over her shoulders lessens just slightly. He hasn’t looked this mischievous since before the mission, maybe long before that, too, to before she left. “Tell me right now.”

“Why should I?” he cocks an eyebrow. A full grin stretches across his face. 

“Please?” she asks sweetly. 

He licks his lips and squints his eyes in mock thinking. “Well, maybe if you give me something that I want in return, I’ll tell you.”

Should she take the bait? Her mind screams _Yes!_ because Jason acting so lighthearted is utterly intoxicating. Leaning closer to him, she asks, “And what is it you want?”

“A kiss would be nice,” he suggests. A soft shyness that makes her breath choke up in her lungs has woven its way into his voice. 

Her mouth drops open slightly. Whatever sharp comeback she had loaded on her tongue falls away. Kiss him? Up until now, she’s been convincing herself that their interactions have been compassionate, yes, but platonic, because she doesn’t want him to fall in love with her when he deserves _so much more_. 

Jason picks up on her hesitance, and that precious smile of his burns out. “You, uh, you don’t have to if you don’t-”

She leans in all the way and pecks his mouth. It’s only for a second, too, but in that finite brevity she memorizes the feel of him: his lips are a little dry, but smooth and warm and perfect nonetheless. She hates herself for it; she shouldn’t be encouraging this even if she wants it more than anything. One look into his starry eyes, though, and she thinks that maybe she can live with the guilt savaging her stomach. 

In an instant he’s tilting into her until he’s a fraction of an inch away. His eyes are trained on her lips, but they flick up to hers, asking for permission. 

She fully accepts her inevitable and eternal damnation when she presses her mouth against his again. 

His hands are careful as one wraps around her waist and the other around the back of her neck, pushing her into him. He tastes like chamomile and honey, courtesy of the tea Alfred brought for them thirty minutes ago. She drinks in the flavor, opening her mouth to taste more of him; she brushes her hands lightly over his jaw, internally marveling at the stubble prickling her fingertips. 

When they finally pull apart, she loses the ability to breathe. She’s never seen him so gorgeous before; dark hair mussed, cheeks flushed, and lips red, Jason looks both loved and loving. Her chest aches because they’ve crossed a boundary she swore to keep protected, and it’s all her fault. 

“I love you,” he murmurs, his blue eyes glittering in the dark. “That’s what I was thinking about, though it’s not much of a secret. I love you, I love you, _I love you_ -” 

She kisses him again, pulling him into her. She adores the words and despises them at the same time. As he opens his mouth to deepen the kiss and she gladly welcomes him, she curses herself a million times over. 

His hands caress her skin softly, tracing over her skin like he never wants to forget its feeling. She can’t say too much, though, because she’s doing the same thing; once she’s confident she’s memorized the feeling of his jaw with its slight sharpness of stubble, she trails her fingers up to knot in his hair, her thumbs pressing lightly into the edges of his cheekbones. 

“I love you, too,” she says with a smile as she pulls away. Yes, she’s definitely going to hell for this. 

* * *

It’s two a.m. when she wakes up. Her chest is weighed down by the ton of sins she’s committed against Jason, aching and tugging and pinching with guilt. She can’t stop wanting and loving him even though she knows she _has to_. Christ, for once in her life, she just needs to stop being selfish and put him first and-

He stirs as if he can sense her worry.

“What’re you doing up?” he asks sleepily, rubbing the rest from his eyes. 

“I-” she starts, but her throat chokes shut on itself. He stretches his shoulders and back, undoubtedly sore from sleeping while sitting and bent over the bed. She swallows hard, before beginning again. “Do you want to come up here with me?”

There’s apprehension in the way he looks up at her, but there’s also a worship in his eyes that makes her shudder with want. “I really don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t,” she rushes out because she’s selfish and she can’t stop loving him even if she wanted to. “You won’t, I promise. I just- I missed you, and I need you.”

“How can you miss me when I’ve been here the entire time?” Jason smiles, his eyes hooded. He thinks her splattering her heart out to him is funny, and that stings her just a little bit when she’s trying so hard to fight her love for him. 

“I missed you when I was away,” she confesses. 

The smile falls from his face. “When you were away?”

She meets his gaze with a courage she didn’t know she still had left in her quivering body. “I missed you every second of every day, Jason. I- I thought about you like crazy—everything reminded me of you.”

“Yeah?” he asks, and he takes her hand into his, pressing a kiss against her wrist. He offers a warm look her way. “I’m- I was the same. Christ, there wasn’t a day where I didn’t wonder how you were doing or if you were safe or, hell, how selfish I was for wanting you back when you were so _happy_ -”

“I’m selfish, too, Jay. More selfish, actually,” she murmurs, bending lower to brush her lips against his brow. 

“You’re not selfish,” he says. Warm tears swarm behind her eyes. He doesn’t _get it_. 

“Yes, I am,” she insists. The words that have been bubbling up in her throat and biting into her tongue and clawing at her lips finally come spilling out, and oh God, she can’t stop them. “I left you after telling you I loved you, I left this life for myself when I could have been helping people and keeping you safe, I moved far away and kept thinking about you, I keep wanting you and loving you for myself, I love you and I don’t deserve you, I-”

The rambling sentence that trembles from her mouth is cut off by Jason pressing his lips against hers. This kiss is harsher than the ones they’ve shared before; it’s full of desperation and longing and anger and sadness. He stands up, leaning over the bed with his arms finding the small of her back and the nape of her neck to pull her in. And she, in all of her infinite selfishness, doesn’t stop him. She lets him kiss her hungrily, even kisses him back with equal vigor, and she guesses it’s because they’re making up for lost time. Her hands clutch onto his shirt, and the tears that threatened to fall, do. She tastes their salt in the kiss as they trace down her cheeks. 

Jason pulls away, looking at her with a seriousness she’s seldom seen him wear. He smiles softly as if to tell her it’s okay, and his once-demanding hands are gentle as they brush away the wet streaks on her skin. 

“If you’re selfish and I’m selfish,” he says, breathless, “Then let’s be selfish together.”

* * *

She doesn’t know how it happens—maybe she pulled him up or maybe he leaned too far, but he’s in the cot with her. It’s nothing scandalous, but it’s something intimate all the same. His strong arms are wrapped around her waist, his chin resting on her chest. 

He’s heavy on top of her legs and lower abdomen. It’s a welcome weight, though, one that keeps her grounded when she doesn’t know what to think or how to feel. They gaze into each other, reveling in the warmth the other gives, listening to whispery breaths and the sound of the clock ticking in the corner of the room. 

Her arms drape over his shoulders, toying with the hair at the nape of his neck; she smiles because he’s due for a haircut. He adjusts his positioning slightly, holding her snugly. She adores the slow circles he draws on her back. Jason presses chaste lips onto her chest before nestling further into her. 

Right now, it’s just _them_. It’s them against the pain the other has endured, them against the dark and bluish-grey world outside, them against the clawing and screaming shadows of doubt and fear and selfishness swirling through their tired minds.

“I- I’m not hurting you, am I?” he asks softly. Christ, his eyes are so wide and so blue and she’s drowning in them. She knows he can feel her rapid pulse because his lips brush against her sternum. 

Lightly, her hands smooth back a few wild strands of his hair. “Not at all, Jay.”

* * *

She doesn’t remember falling asleep, but she does remember waking up to Alfred’s terse throat-clearing of disapproval. Jason somehow doesn’t hear it—he must be exhausted from the past few weeks, so she’s left to deal with the butler’s criticism alone. 

“I didn’t realize Master Jason staying here would result in such improper behavior,” he says with his greyed eyebrows raised high. 

She thinks he says it with sarcasm, though it’s always difficult to tell with Alfred. He doesn’t say anything else, leaving the tray of food beside her but not insisting on waking up Jason. 

* * *

When he does finally come to, his hands trace warm designs into her back. It’s midday, and she thinks she’s supposed to have had her exam by now, but somehow she doesn’t mind. 

“‘Morning,” Jason says with a sleepy smile. 

His hooded eyes are so precious she wants to kiss them; hell, she wants to kiss every inch of his face. Last night, she’d allowed herself to open a dam, one she knew she wouldn’t be able to close if it was ever opened, and guilt creeps in her stomach as she remembers it. 

“Good morning,” she says, returning his grin anyway. 

Her fingertips find their way to his shoulders, skimming up his warm, tired skin until she reaches his cheeks. Jason shudders against her. His stubble is still sharp against her palms, pricking her as if to warn her that she shouldn’t get too close, for his sake. 

But she’s always been a fool, and a part of her knows she deserves whatever pain he has to give her. This is her penance, and she gladly takes it if it means both retribution and relief. 

“God,” he murmurs, skimming his mouth over her chest. She swears her heart only beats for him in that moment—and maybe it has only _ever_ beat for him. There’s just exaltation swirling in his eyes, and she can’t tell if it saves her or kills her. “You’re an angel, you know that?”

She doesn’t feel like an angel, not when she’s so selfish and not when she’s so cowardly and not when she’s so guilty and not when she’s so absolutely and completely riddled with sin. 

“I’m hardly-”

“You _are_.” 

His hands pull away from her back, and she gasps at the sudden lack of heat. He uses them to support himself as he shifts up to meet her face. She misses the comforting weight of his body on hers almost instantly. Jason’s lips brush over the corner of her mouth before planting firmly on her cheek. 

“If I’m an angel, what does that make you?” she asks when he continues to place the softest kisses over her skin; she asks because if she’s an angel, he has to be one too. 

“A sinner.” Jason’s voice is dark, ominous, like black clouds on the horizon that threaten rain. She hates the way he says it, hates the way he thinks he’s dirty, hates the way he hates himself. 

She doesn’t mean for her voice to come out as roughly as it does when she answers. “No, you aren’t.” 

“Yes, I am.” He pulls away, his mouth warped into a deep scowl. “Hell, I shouldn’t- I shouldn’t even be touching you.”

He falls back on his knees, still straddling her legs but nowhere near her face. She frowns, her hands chasing after his body like he’s her lifeline, because he is, _he is_. “Jason, you aren’t a sinner."

“I let you get hurt.”

“ _Jason_.” She leans forward, even though hot pain brands her left shoulder. Her tired, cold hands hold his face. “This is _my_ fault. _I’m_ the one who did this. You have no obligation to protect me.”

He just looks at her, and she sees the dark bags carved beneath his eyes. All of the shadows of his face, contrasted by soft, yellow rays of sunlight, seem infinitely blacker. “But I should’ve had the situation under control. I shouldn’t have gone first. I should’ve been the one to-”

“No,” she says. Her lips trace over the tip of his nose and the corners of his mouth and his forehead and his cheeks. She feels wet drops lick over her lips and tastes salt. “Jason, I chose to do this, okay? So don’t ever say that you belong in my place, because I did this to myself. You didn’t do a single thing wrong.” 

“But I-”

“I don’t blame you, and I never will.” 

His hands find her wrists, pushing her away from his face. And the way he looks at her—horrified, tired, guilty—just about kills her. “Even if I deserve it?”

“You don’t deserve it, Jason.” 

Though he isn’t letting her touch him—something that cuts deeper than any blade—she still manages to look as tenderly as possible into his eyes. Fear and self-hatred tremble over his pale face, fighting for dominance. And Jason? She can tell that Jason is buckling beneath the struggle. 

“And what if I do?” he asks, almost begging her to just agree and cast him away.

She can’t ever. She couldn’t do it even when she knew it would be better for the both of them, and now that he needs her, she sure as hell can’t leave him. 

“You don’t.”

“What if-”

“ _You don’t_.” 

Defeat is what finally wins hold over of his face. His mouth is slack and his brow is furrowed, though disgust still veils over his cheeks. The blue in his eyes is somehow watered down. He still holds onto her wrists, but all of the strength he’d used to keep her away flees from his arms. 

She cups his face again, savoring the sting of his stubble over her palms and the smoothness of his cheeks against her thumbs; getting as close to him as she can, so that their chests brush together with each breath and she can feel his warmth humming off of him, she keeps looking at the steel blue of his eyes to ground herself.

“Jason,” she murmurs, so close to him that their lips brush with each syllable. “I love you, and I don’t blame you, and I won’t _ever_ blame you, okay?” 

He just nods. Jason stares into her like the second he looks away she’ll disappear. Only then do his arms wrap around her. 

* * *

The exam is terrible, mainly because Jason has to leave the room for it. Neither one of them is too keen on that idea. Before he’s ushered out by one very exasperated butler (“Please, Al-” “No, Master Jason, this is the standard procedure.” “But what if I-” “Master Jason, it will only take an hour.” “Okay, but-” “Will I need to call Master Bruce down?”), he casts her one last longing look. 

Phantom limb syndrome. That’s how she feels without Jason touching her or next to her or even just in the same goddamn space with her. 

It’s terrifying to think how she can _need_ him that much already; even when they had first professed their love, even when they had shared days and nights and minutes and years together, she’d never needed him as much as she does now. 

Emptiness hollows out her bones; all warmth leaves her body. She can’t even take in a full breath of air without him there, by her side; the electrocardiogram must be lying because she’s sure she doesn’t have a heartbeat if Jason’s not with her. 

When it’s just her and Alfred in the room, she can hear his breathing and the sound of the clock and a slight high-pitched whine in her ear. 

“Tinnitus,” he says, but they both already knew that. Between her (previous) vigilante lifestyle and love for explosives, as well as her friendship with Jason, the marksmen of the Wayne family, her hearing has been thoroughly compromised. There was never any question about that particular injury. 

It’s quiet again after that. Alfred is thorough, and she knows every patch of her back and sides, even the areas unblemished by her most recent scars, is examined. That doesn’t make it any less nerve-wracking; this is her body, and she might never be able to enjoy the rewarding toil of gardening or the freedom of basic mobility again. At the same time, even if her body is shattered beyond repair, she wants to see Jason, wants to go home, wants to go home _with Jason_. 

Her body aches at the thought. Christ, she does need him, and she knows that she’s never going to stop needing him. 

“How does it look, Alfred?” she asks, mainly because the silence is killing her.

He pulls away. His British accent is thick with relief. “Four months of physical therapy paired with good behavior, and you should be as right as rain.”

“Really?” That can’t be right. Her shoulder should be massively fucked up (and that’s putting it lightly). 

“You’ll still have some stiffness in it, and you may want to go into weather reporting because it will ache with every oncoming storm,” a joke, disguised only by the unchanged expression across Alfred’s face. “But it should be more or less fully functional within half a year.” 

She frowns, focusing on the feeling of the sunlight branding her left arm to keep her grounded. “Will I- will I be able to go home?” 

She doesn’t want to get hopeful, not at a time like this. As much as she needs that extra spark, when it’s inevitably crushed into nothing but ash, she’ll be even worse off. And yet, the idea of her being back in New York, in her too-small cabin, even if she’s snowed in until May, blooms warmth within her chest all the same. 

“Yes.” He says it with a curious sort of lilt in his voice. His tired eyes, the ones that have seen wars and deaths and funerals and now midnight crusades, are kindled only with a spark of mischief. “With supervision, of course.” 

“Supervision?” Daring hope fills her lungs even more, because what if what if what if she and Jason can go back home together? 

She shouldn’t not when she’s been so awful to Jason and not when she knows he’ll eventually have to don the mask once more, but the thought alone sends a thrill echoing through her body. 

Alfred clears his throat, and she knows he’s choosing his next words carefully. “I am no stranger to the weather where you live, nor am I too much of a fool to believe you will allow a neighbor to do manual labor if no one else is there to monitor you.”

“Do you recommend a physical therapist, or. . . ?” she trails off. 

“You may choose whoever you like, though I recommend it be someone who is physically capable to lift several hundred kilos of snow.” Another wry comment. She smiles, biting her lip. When she doesn’t say anything else, he continues, “I would also recommend that _this person_ be able to build some of the equipment necessary for your recovery.”

“I- I think I know someone who’d be willing.” 

Alfred clears his throat. “Good.”

As he gets up to collect the instruments, however, he pauses. The look he casts her way is deliberate, a careful cross between optimistic and cautious. 

“If you do choose Master Jason,” Alfred says softly. It’s the most tender she’d ever heard his voice get, and the grey-blue of his eyes isn’t shielded behind sarcasm or mirth when she looks into them. He’s being completely translucent with her right now, a thought that shocks through her body. “Please watch over him for me.” 

It’s funny, because now both Alfred _and_ Bruce have asked her the same thing, as if to give her another chance to rethink her previous response, and she knows that she’s condemning herself when she answers. 

She smiles, taking his wrinkled hand in hers and giving it a firm squeeze. “Of course, Alfred.”

Only then does he smile, and only then does she feel lighter than she has in a while. While an incomplete confession, it’s a confession nonetheless; ‘ _Of course_ ,’ doesn’t just mean ‘ _Yes_ ,’ but instead ‘ _Always, even before now and forever in the future_.’ 

And she means it with every beat of her heart. 

* * *

Jason is in the door as soon as Alfred leaves. She’s surprised—she figured he would have consulted with him first—but thankful to not be without him for that much longer. 

Worry knits into his forehead, furrowing his brow and curling his mouth into a frown. She guesses that Alfred didn’t betray anything when he finally stepped out, which Jason must have interpreted as ‘very bad.’ She attempts to school her expression in the same way, though a small smile shows anyways. He’s by her side in an instant, hands clasped around hers as she drowns in the blue of his irises. 

“What-” his voice cracks, and he swallows. “What’s it looking like?”

She grips his palms, finally allowing a full-fledged grin to break out. “Four months of physical therapy.” 

She doubts she’s ever seen him look so happy as he crushes her in a hug. He holds her tightly, lingering against her; her arms loop around his neck to hold him even closer. 

“Thank God,” he says, the words hot and breathy against the skin of her unmarred shoulder. 

“It’s definitely. . . wow. . . .” She chuckles, though it’s more of a cheery exhale than anything. “I thought it would have been worse.”

Jason brushes his lips over her skin. “Don’t say that.”

He’s right and she knows it. She should be thankful, and not giving a damn anymore about the useless what-ifs that plagued her over the previous weeks. Her hands tangle in his hair, feeling the warmth from his skin soak into her tired, cold body. 

“Alfred says I can go back home right now if I really want to,” she says, as softly and lightly as she can. Still, Jason’s arms tighten around her waist, and she can’t feel his slow breaths sweeping over her shoulder anymore; it’s like he’s frozen, like those words suspended him in time and he won’t ever be able to move again.

“Yeah?”

His voice is quiet, and she knows he’s afraid because of the way his fingers curl around the fabric of her hospital gown. One of them grazes the bare skin of her back, shocking her with both the warmth and hesitance of his touch. 

“Mmhm,” she murmurs. His hair is so soft beneath her palms, and she can’t get enough of the feel of him. “He also said that I should find someone to temporarily live with me considering it’s winter and I shouldn’t over-exert my shoulder.”

Only then does Jason suck in a breath. “Do you- do you have anyone in mind?”

“I think I do,” she says with a wry smile. 

He pulls away, barely, so that their noses brush. His eyebrows curve upwards in obvious hope, his mouth crushed into a careful line. There’s a glimmer of something so sweet and so precious that brightens the blue of his eyes. 

“Oh, uh, who?”

She hums, trilling her fingers along the nape of his neck. “I’ll give you a hint: black hair, blue eyes, very caring and hard-working, might need a break from saving the world?”

“Let me guess,” he frowns. She can’t tell if he’s genuinely oblivious or pulling her leg. “Dick?”

“Six feet tall,” she adds, raising an eyebrow. 

A smile twists up the corners of his mouth, ever so slightly. She wrinkles her nose: definitely pulling her leg. “Ah, so not Dick.”

“ _You_ , Jason,” she says. She means to say it with exasperation, but her utter adoration for him overshadows that particular emotion. He inhales sharply, one of his warm hands moving to cup her face—she relaxes into it immediately.

“Me?”

“You.”

“Are you- are you sure?” 

All of his previous impishness is discarded, making way for self-consciousness instead. Her heart aches because hell, Jason, the sweetest, kindest person she’s met (sweet and kind to those deserving it, of course) hates himself the most; he doesn’t extend any of that love or patience to himself, and he’s the one person on Earth who deserves it. 

She grabs hold of his hand on her cheek, squeezing it firmly. “I’m sure. There’s no one I’d rather be snowed in with.”

The smile that curves up his mouth and parts his lips is what gives her life. Jason is suddenly five years younger than he appears, all of the worry and exhaustion and anguish melting away from his face. She breathes in his scent as she mirrors the grin. 

“We _are_ going to be snowed in, aren’t we?” Jason says, his mouth brushing against her lips with every syllable. 

“Yeah, it’s going to be a shit-ton,” she chuckles, thinking about the several feet of snow she’d had to shovel during the tail end of March alone. 

“So that’s why you needed me, huh? Manual labor?” He’s kidding with her again, with sparkling eyes and a wide smile and a tone in his deep voice that is just so _happy_ she can’t help but chuckle. 

“I can help you if you want-”

“Not a chance in hell with your shoulder like that.”

She barks out a laugh, ruffling his hair. “If you take care of the snow, I’ll take care of the food. Is that okay with you?”

“Sounds perfect,” Jason breathes, before pressing his lips against hers. What else can she really do besides melt into him even more?

* * *

The train ride is actually enjoyable for once, and she thinks it’s because she has someone to share the view with. Or rather, because she has someone _so enthusiastic_ to share the view with. Jason marvels at the world flying by them, his breath fogging up the glass. His warm hand holds hers, tracing small circles over her skin. 

By the time they enter Poughkeepsie, New Jersey’s bleak, brown winterscape fades into the untarnished, white paradise of New York State. While he’s seen the entire world, from foreign nations to landscapes untouched by human hands to somehow both awe-inspiringly and terribly industrial cities, somehow, he still finds wonder in her childhood escape, swathed in snow. 

She loves the look in his eyes, like he’s finally found light within a suffocating darkness, because it gives her hope for the future. She thinks that maybe she can convince him to stay with her, sheltered from the muck of the city and the evil in the world—then she feels guilty for wanting to tear him away from the work he’s invested his entire life to. If she does that, how can she really call herself his friend, his lover?

Jason’s warm hand squeezes her own tightly as if to ward away her bad thoughts. “What’s wrong?”

“I-” she falters, because she doesn’t know if she should tell him the truth or lie. Her gut wins over. “I was being selfish again.”

“Is that all?” he asks. 

The blue of his eyes is more brilliant than the cloudless sky peaking between branches heavy with white and more tender than the cool grey shadows tracing over the snow outside. Just one look from him, and she’s suddenly grounded again.

“Yeah.” Her throat is tight but her chest is somehow lighter. 

Jason leans in, bringing her cold knuckles up to his lips. Brushing a soft kiss over them, he says, “Remember what I said, okay? Let’s be selfish together.”

She shouldn’t smile, because she knows one day it’ll have to all end; she shouldn’t smile because she knows he’ll be pulled back into the shitty world that tore into him so deeply; she shouldn’t smile because she knows there’s the possibility that she might lose him forever eventually. 

The edges of her mouth quirk up anyway, even with all of those terrible thoughts swirling through her head like particularly vengeful vultures. “I love you, Jason.”

“I love you, too,” he says, with a smile better than the sun and the moon and every star ever seen in the goddamn sky. 

* * *

Much like the first time she first stepped up to her home, the sun is low in the sky, and the world is a war of blue and white and yellow. Jason whistles at the golden fragments of the sun scattered by skeletal branches.

“You just don’t get that in Gotham, huh?” he says with a grin. 

Despite her protests, he carries both her small duffel and his significantly-larger suitcase in one hand, his other hooked around her waist in case she slips on ice. They both know that because she hasn’t been around to shovel, there is no ice, just a never-ending sea of fresh snow; he still uses the phantom frost as an excuse to hold her, and she doesn’t object in the slightest. 

She chuckles, palming her keys in her pocket. Anxiety carves into her gut, because now she’s got to show him her home, which, if she’s being honest, is somewhere between a shack and a cottage. While she loves it, particularly for herself, she knows it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. 

When she turns to face him, she sees that the frigid air has kissed his cheeks to the point of scarlet. “No, and you also don’t get seven metric tons of snow and ice, either.”

“That’s fair,” Jason laughs, white condensation puffing out from his mouth with each guffaw. 

Those chuckles fade off when he fully sees her home. The windows are dark, and aside from the roof being smothered by a thick blanket of snow, the place looks relatively unharmed. She can’t read his face as they step closer. 

Her hands shake as they fit the key into the lock. She prays he sees it as from the cold, which is biting and violating, and not because of her nerves. 

The door swings open, revealing her modest little cabin. It’s dim due to the early winter dusk, and freezing, given the wood stove has been off for a month. Everything, from tea kettle to the logs stacked in the corner to the dishes on the drying rack, is right where she left it. 

His blue eyes trace over every detail the interior of the cabin has to offer. To say that she’s terrified of his reaction is an understatement; she wants him to like it because she adores this little haven of hers, but she also knows what this place stands for in his mind: the reason why she left him in the first place. That alone would bias his first impressions. 

Jason lets her bag and his suitcase thud to the ground. His gloved hand never leaves her side, instead pressing him further into him. 

“I love it,” Jason says, and she’s relieved to see that his smile reaches his eyes. 

* * *

Doing an inventory check of her space, she wrinkles her nose. All of the food in her mini fridge is spoiled; she’d been expecting a week long excursion, or else the grave. Either way, she’d been ill-prepared for the rotting smell that chokes up her lungs when she opens the damn thing. 

“Shit,” Jason says, wrinkling his nose as he comes in with more firewood. “Do you want me to clean that out for you?”

Stifling a gag, she replies, “No, I’ve got it. My mess, my clean up.” 

He looks like he wants to object, but clamps his mouth shut when she begins tossing all of the containers of fruit and vegetables—now rancid mush—into a trash bag. Halfway through, she almost laughs despite the utter disgust bubbling up in her stomach; she can handle any amount of death and gore without wanting to vomit, and yet a month-old tub of spinach is what does her in. 

“I’ll take it outside, okay?” Jason finally says. 

“I can take it.” She glances up at him, incredulous. Jason says her name sternly, and his eyebrows are arched in a way that tells her he’s not willing to negotiate. Holding her hands up in mock defense, she concedes, “Alright, fine.” 

He’s over and out the door with the bag in a second. The room is strangely empty in the minute he’s gone from it. She turns back to the food in the small cabinet bolted to the wall so as to distract herself from his absence. 

Seeing as all other perishables, including milk, butter, and even marinara sauce, are rancid, their food-pool for dinner is slim pickings (unless, on the off chance, Jason wants plain noodles, which is unlikely). They’ve got three bowls of instant ramen, an unopened bag of pretzels, and a gallon jug of clean drinking water. Not ideal by any means; they’ll need to run to the grocer first thing tomorrow morning. 

The door opens, and with it, a gust of frigid air cuts across the back of her exposed neck. She cringes, immediately regretting the action as pain shoots through her jolted shoulder. 

“The deed is done,” Jason says with a grin, shutting the door behind him. Her body doesn’t ache as much when she sees him. 

“What are we, in the mafia?” she jokes, picking up on his refreshed lighthearted attitude. 

Jason barks a laugh and shrugs off his coat—how, she doesn’t know, considering it’s still below freezing even inside the house. “Been there, done that. Organized crime is far too bland for my taste.” 

“Uh huh?” she says while rolling her eyes. 

“Yep,” he chuckles, popping the ‘p.’ “Can’t say I’d go back.”

She tries to ignore the stupid way her stupid head misinterprets those words. ‘ _Can’t say I’d go back_.’ She prays, selfishly, might she add, for a moment that he might mean back to the vigilante lifestyle, even though she knows that that won’t ever be the case. 

She coughs in an attempt to cover up all the emotions welling in her chest. “That’s good, considering I’ve never been one to enjoy the underworld way of doing things.”

“Too much of a goody-two-shoes, I see,” he says. Clicking his tongue, he kicks off his boots before moving to the wood stove.

“I guess you could say that,” she says with a sheepish grin. “How does ramen sound for dinner?”

“Perfect—you know I only accept the finest of cuisine,” he jokes. 

Laughter bubbles up in her throat for the first time in a while. She’s surprised by it, so it’s just a single, high-pitched guffaw. “I forgot to mention, there’s a side of slightly-crushed pretzels.” 

The hollow clunk of logs being stacked on top of each other sounds from behind her. Jason chuckles. “Bringing out the gourmet stuff now, huh?”

“Of course,” she turns, winking at him, “Only the best for my esteemed guest.” 

Flames roar to life, the sound welcome to her tired ears. Familiarity weaves its way around her body, a comforting blanket to an otherwise strained reality. She hadn’t realized it, but she missed the smell of campfire smoke. 

“Want any help?” Jason offers from beside the wood stove. 

“Jay, it’s just instant ramen,” she says with a chuckle, throwing a disbelieving glance over her shoulder. “I think I can handle myself.”

“You sure?”

She can’t tell if he’s joking or not. She laughs it off anyway. “Yeah. You just rest, okay?”

* * *

The sun has completely surrendered to the dark earth by the time the water’s finished boiling. She pours the flavor packets over the blocks of noodles, making sure to give Jason the extra cup considering he’s both significantly bigger than her and will need the extra fuel for tomorrow. 

The entire time she works, she feels his stare. He follows her every movement, from the careful way she sets the blue bowls she bought from a tag sale on the counter to the way she measures out the appropriate amount of water. It isn’t a scrutinizing gaze, though; it’s more like he’s watching her to make sure she doesn’t stumble. She knows that if she does, he’ll be by her side in a heartbeat. 

At last, once she’s mixed everything to perfection and added a dash of paprika to make the meal a little more palatable, she balances the bowls in the crook of her good elbow, holding utensils and napkins in her left hand. 

“Unfortunately, I don’t have another chair, Jason,” she apologizes. He’s sat cross-legged on the ground, right by the wood stove. 

“No worries.” He accepts the bowl with gracious hands, his fingers grazing hers. 

Instead of sitting at the table, however, she sits next to him on the floor. She watches, almost in delight, as surprise works its way over his beautiful face. “Much better.”

He coughs, and even in the dimness of the room, the tips of his ears look redder than usual. Jason’s eyes burn in the golden light, the blue warping and shifting and being extinguished as shadows flicker over his face. They flick from his bowl to hers, then up to her face.

“You’ve got less than me,” he says while frowning. 

“Ah, I’m not really that hungry right now.” That’s a bit of a lie; she’s ravenous, but her own portion should be enough to hold her over until the next morning. 

Disbelief and annoyance curve his brow and bow his lips. “Take some of mine, seriously.”

“Jason-”

“Please?”

She sighs, nodding and wrinkling her nose at him. Using a single prong on her fork, she picks up one of the smaller clumps of noodles, before stuffing it into her face. Then she returns to her own bowl, smirking as she chews. “Better?”

“Christ, you’re so stubborn,” he huffs. Still, he digs in, knowing he can’t exactly force her to eat. 

“You’re one to talk,” she snorts and nudges him with her good shoulder. A noodle sticks out from his mouth and his eyebrows are furrowed, though he doesn’t seem genuinely angry with her. “Mr. ‘I’ll-Carry-Everything-Despite-Any-and-All-Protests.’”

“You could have hurt yourself,” he says, nudging her back.

“With the bags, sure, but not with the fridge trash.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “I’m not taking any chances. You called me up here with you to supervise, right? Well, this is me _supervising_.”

“Killjoy.” She sticks out her tongue at him. 

She expects him to laugh with her and shoot back with an equally scalding comment and maybe even poke her in the side or cheek like he used to do on patrol. He still grins and playfully squints his eyes into little azure crescents at her, though his unoccupied warm hand brushes up her back, somewhere between a friendly pat and a lingering touch reserved for lovers only. 

“Someone’s got to be the adult here,” he says finally, his hand moving back to support his bowl. 

“Yeah?” she asks, drunk off of this spark of familiarity between them, because hell, it’s been too long and she missed just _talking_ to him, even before they were kind-of-sort-of-maybe romantically involved. 

He hums with a mouth full of food. “Mhmm.” 

“Thanks, Jason,” she smiles. 

“For what?” Authentic surprise widens his eyes and quirks up his eyebrows. 

“Just being here with me.” 

The grin he flashes at her is so bright and priceless, she has the urge to hoard it all to herself for the rest of time. “Anytime.”

That reminds her of her last night in Gotham, of the two of them sitting in the rain as they spilled their hearts out, of their somehow spectacular and harrowing goodbye; despite it all, they’ve finally made that bleak but necessary finality into something more hopeful.

‘Anytime’ had been an impossibility back then. Now, it’s something within their grasp. 

* * *

She coughs when she shows him the bedroom, mainly because of her lack of foresight; there’s only one bed, and it’s a twin at that. Jason sees this and blushes, even though they technically already shared the cot back at the Manor. 

“I can sleep out by the fire?” he offers, drumming his fingers on his thighs. 

“No, I’ll do that-”

“Not with your shoulder,” he cuts in. “Seriously, it’s not a problem.”

“How about a compromise, then?” she huffs. Jason crushes his lips together before waving his hand in the air as if to say ‘ _Go on_.’ “What if we share the bed?” 

“No way.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose. And _she’s_ the stubborn one? “We already shared the cot in the Manor, Jason. It’s not like this’ll be any more ‘scandalous’ than that.” 

“That was before I was solely responsible for you,” he says, crossing his arms. 

His stance, the almost reprimanding stare he shoots her way, the stiffness of his shoulders, all imply that he doesn’t want her to say anything back. They both know she will, though. With matched intensity and a single quirked eyebrow, she says, “If you’re sleeping on the floor, I’m sleeping on the floor.”

“I’ll pick you up and put you back in bed.”

“Then _I’ll_ lay right back on the ground.”

“And I’ll pick you right back up. I can go all night with this, y’know.” Jason says this with a huff, though the slight quirk of his lips betrays his internal amusement. 

“You want me to rest but are willing to bicker with me all night? Seems kind of counterproductive,” she says, and knows she’s won. The buckle of his shoulders and heavy sigh seeping from his mouth tell her that he knows it, too.

He mutters her name beneath his breath, almost like a curse and a prayer. She couldn’t stop grinning if she wanted to. “Stop it. I’m serious.”

Raising her eyebrows in a hopeful sort of way, she doesn’t say anything. 

“None of that,” he says, uncrossing his arms and raking a hand through his hair in obvious resignation. 

She smiles at him. “Please, Jay?” 

“Jesus,” Jason frowns, rubbing a rough hand over his face. His eyes are tired from behind his fingers and she knows he’s going to be the one to break this impasse of theirs. “Fine.”

“‘Bout time,” she says, nestling into the far side of the bed. She holds the three blankets piled onto the mattress—only one of which was recently added seeing as the inside of the cabin was still fifty degrees—open for him. 

He climbs in, albeit reluctantly. They face each other, less than a foot of space between them, and yet it feels like miles. On his side, with his back to the side of the bed not pushed against the wall, he keeps his hands to himself like he’s terrified even at the prospect of encroaching her space; that, and he’s precariously balanced on the edge of the bed, and his feet hang off of the end of it. The entirety of his body language just _screams_ discomfort. 

“Jason,” she murmurs. His name from her lips is nothing more than a breathy chuckle, but she wouldn’t have it any other way; it sounds perfect any way she says it. 

“Yeah?” In the dim light, she sees just the slightest glint of his eyes.

“C’mon over here,” she says. “I promise I won’t bite.”

Jason gulps, not even acknowledging her joke. “Are you sure you want me to? I don’t want to hurt you or make you uncomfortable.”

“Positive.” To reaffirm the word, she reaches out her hand to cup his face. When he relaxes into her palm, his skin so lovely and warm, she continues, “Plus, y’know, it’s kind of chilly in here, wouldn’t you say?”

“Ah, yeah, I, uh, I guess you’re right about that,” he says, and she can hear the smile in his deep voice. 

The blankets rustle as his hand finds the curve of her waist, mindful of the inflamed scar along her ribs; the mattress creaks as he scoots closer into her, and she relishes the cautious, warm breaths fanning over her skin in the silence that follows. 

“How’s that?” he murmurs, his voice just inches from her face. 

“Perfect.” And she means it with every molecule in her body, because this is where she feels home. Not in her cabin, even if she had grown attached to the space, but with Jason. Forever and always with Jason. 

* * *

She wakes up, still in his arms. His eyes are open in the dim light of the room, the soft colors of flame silhouetting his body from behind. 

“I love you,” he murmurs, pressing his lips against her forehead. 

She smiles, feeling her pulse bloom at his soft words and warm body and tight embrace. “I love you, too, Jason.”

* * *

Going to the local grocer with Jason is something like a dream come true. 

It’s mundane, she knows, because the shopping cart he insisted upon has a lame, squeaky wheel that impedes efficient mobility and because they both still feel the tidings of sleep pulling at their bodies. Hell, it’s an everyday task that is cloaked in monotony, so she shouldn’t be so excited about it, and yet she can’t stop smiling. 

Jason, still bundled in his large winter coat, with sweats and a reasonable covering of stubble over his jaw and upper lip, is absolutely adorable. 

He doesn’t look on edge for once in his life; sure he’d been relaxed around her before, but there was always something in his body language that suggested he expected an ambush at any moment. That inclination is gone, probably because he’s exhausted and hungry and cold, and because he knows that Bruce has probably scoped out the town to ensure both of their safety. 

She laces her fingers with his as he pushes the cart around; the sleepy smile curving his lips makes her heart stop. They pick up cereal and milk and eggs, along with a host of fruits, vegetables, and cuts from the Polish deli right by to the cash registers. 

When they come back out, they have three paper bags worth of food—she thinks that maybe they shouldn’t have gone shopping absolutely ravenous, but it can’t be helped now. 

* * *

She’s roomed with Jason before, but always in a safe house when on the run and always with someone else. That, and she’s never had to really share a bed with him. Completely unsupervised, that is; even when at the Manor, she’d known Alfred and/or Bruce was there to check on them. 

This, on the other hand, is strangely domestic: 

Waking up in the morning, tangled in his embrace, with Jason’s soft, sleepy smiles and eyes glittering in the pale light; making meals in the main room that always felt cozy even with just her, so that their arms brush and her hip accidentally grazes his leg on more than one occasion; sitting in front of the fire with warm cups of tea, reading on the quilt she laid out on their second day because she doesn’t have much furniture; taking cautious walks around the glen her house is situated in so as to break free from the shackles of cabin fever, always with his hand in her own or around her shoulders or waist; watching flurries of snow from the windows with a childlike wonder that they should’ve outgrown long ago but somehow haven’t, despite it all; bathing in squares of honeyed sun as dusk stretches over the blue-white landscape; staring into the flames late at night, bodies pressed up against each other, laughing and telling jokes and sometimes just silently enjoying each other’s company; falling asleep to the steady rhythm of Jason’s heartbeat and breathing, with his body wrapped around her as if to protect her from some unknown intruder.

It’s a dependable routine, and an intimate one, too, marred only by the hour every other day or so when Jason has to go outside and shovel the walkway. Even then, she has a cup of tea ready to warm him up when he comes back in, which he takes with grateful hands and a soft ‘ _Thank you_ ’ and a brush of his chilled lips against her brow. 

She wouldn’t have it any other way, even when she knows it’ll eventually have to end. 

* * *

She starts her physical therapy exercises after a week of settling into this new arrangement of theirs. With large workout bands that Jason nabbed from the Manor (he promises her that he left others, but she thinks he may have genuinely stolen them without telling Bruce), she pulls her bad arm this way and that. 

Jason watches, sitting by the fire. He wants her to wait another week just to make _sure_ she’s okay and doesn’t injure herself further; his jaw is tight with worry, but he doesn’t say a word. 

A long, slow breath trembles from her lungs. On the ‘Strengthening Resisting Flexion’ portion, where she has to pull the band, secured on something behind her, forward, a twinge of _something_ that feels like painful itch in her left shoulder streaks through her. It’s not terrible but it also doesn’t exactly feel good. 

She stops to take in deep breaths. There’s stiffness, and a kind of dull ache that settles in her back, and at first she thinks that’s all it’ll be. 

Scapular Retraction, however, is what does her in; rolling her shoulders back a meager four times explodes a white hot pain in the upper left half of her body. She doubles over in an instant, a strangled cry torn from her mouth as the agony continues to burn into her, almost like a brand. 

Jason races over to her, his hands mindful and cautious when he strokes her lower back, telling her to breathe. 

Her hands shake and her body screams when she tries to move and the sharpness bubbling up in her lungs makes her want to cry out and the high-pitched whine in her ear along with the roaring silence make it nearly impossible for her to concentrate on anything but the searing pain in her shoulder. She wants to curse but can’t with the damn lump in her throat, wants to breathe, too, but can’t choke in enough air. 

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, long after the pain has died down to a simmering throb and the hot streaks of tears down her face have dried. His fingers are soft over her body, yet heavy in that they anchor her to the present. 

* * *

Jason holds her tightly that night, like he’s the only thing keeping her together, and she doesn’t doubt that he is. She falls asleep to the sound of him murmuring sweet nothings into her ear, his breath warm against her cold skin. 

* * *

She tries again two days later, the sting of defeat the only real injury she sustained from her previous attempt. Jason is right there beside her, his presence one that calms her and makes her steel the muscles of her body; he holds the bands as she works, his gaze never leaving her body.

Pain caresses along her left shoulder, dull at first, then tearing up all the way to her neck. She forces long breaths in and out from her nose, trying to rein in control. 

Part of her is frustrated—Alfred had promised her a four month recovery period after all. In theory, she should be getting better, even if it is only her second time doing the exercises. She wants that to be the status quo so she can move on with her life. 

That’s the thought that flits through her mind when she reaches for the band again. Jason smiles at her, an motivating little bend of his lips that sets her heart and mind on fire. 

“You’re doing great,” he says, and she allows herself to smile back at him. 

* * *

It doesn’t feel like she’s doing great, just like it doesn’t feel like she’s making any progress. For two weeks, she’s been doing the exercises, and yet each day, without fail, she has to stop because of the damn pain in her shoulder. 

Jason offers her words of encouragement, and she tries to take them, but she feels sick at the mere prospect of taking even longer to recover. She needs to get better, right away, so she can start _living_ again. 

* * *

The smile he wears while he watches her work is sad, and she can’t stand to look at it. 

She pulls at the band harder, and in an instant, hot pain sears from the top of her neck to her mid-back and chest; some of it echoes just past her left elbow. A sob wrenches from her body, and she can’t seem to breathe anything other than hollow wheezes, but she continues the exercise until all of the reps are completed. She collapses against the table, trying to breathe and finding that oxygen is wasted on her. 

Jason takes the band from her reddened hands and folds it up neatly. He doesn’t touch her knowing it’ll make the pain even worse. “Do you want me to put the kettle on?” 

She can only nod, looking outside at the snow falling to stop hot tears from falling. 

* * *

The scrape of the shovel against icy gravel grates at her ears. Jason’s outside, clearing the pathway; last night, the heavens dropped a foot of snow down on them. It’s the heavy stuff, too, the wet kind of snow that weighs infinitely more than it should and cakes onto the shovel. 

She wants to help him even though she knows she’ll only get in the way. 

Her mind flickers to a terrible and yet plausible idea: maybe she’ll be able to make progress without his blue eyes tracing over every movement. She knows that it’s a silly idea, and yet that doesn’t stop her from trying it out.

She winds the band around the bed frame and begins to pull on it. The first rep of fifteen seems to be going well—that is, until she hits twelve and a hot, sharp pain shocks through her. Her knees buckle, and for the first time in three weeks, Jason isn’t there to catch her.

Her legs crush to the ground first, her useless left hand caught in the elastic band and wrenched upwards. Every muscle in her godforsaken body screams at her to _pull away_ _pull away_ _pull away_ but any and all movement is impossible. The crackling of the fire in the other room is drowned out by her pained grunts and gargling gasps. She can’t cry out for help because she can’t breathe and she can’t form the words and she can’t focus on anything but the harshness carving out the inside of her ribcage. 

Somewhere in the background of her pain, she hears the front door open. Jason greets the empty space with a cheerful shout of her name, though it’s quickly cut off when he hears her desperate whimpers. His rushing footsteps echo from the floorboards into her body heaped on the ground. He shouts her name once before he’s in the bedroom, eyes wild and so blue it hurts. 

“Christ,” he says. His voice is rough like he’s reprimanding her, but his face is soft through her blurry, tear-filled vision. 

She can’t defend herself, not when her breath is crumpled in her lungs and not when her pulse pounds in her head. His hand grazes her back and she tenses—a new tsunami of pain washes through her body—before he recoils from her altogether. 

“Sorry,” she says in a rasping plea.

* * *

It takes several minutes for her to calm down and several more for her to convince Jason that moving her won’t be too much of a problem. He’s still hesitant, still looks like it kills him when she cries out as he untwists her arm, but does so anyway. 

* * *

She stares into the flames as Jason makes her a cup of tea. Blankets are piled over her, almost to the point of suffocation, but she makes no move to shrug them off. 

The dull throb of her pulse echoes through her sorry body, getting caught and sputtering out in the epicenter of her wound. Every breath she attempts spreads that ache out just a little further; eventually, it feels like she’ll just be one vaguely human-shaped ball of pain. 

* * *

She doesn’t make another attempt at the exercises Alfred prepared for her before they left, not even when Jason is there to smooth back her hair and brush his lips over her cheek and offer her any strength she needs to continue on. 

She can’t. She just can’t. And she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to again. 

He accepts it, knowing he shouldn’t push her. It’s ironic, because three weeks ago, they were the opposite—Jason had been the one hesitant to begin and she’d been the trail-blazer, and now they’re swapped. 

Her heart aches because she isn’t being fair to him; at the same time, she knows that if she has to face that blinding, unforgiving pain again, she very might well shatter completely. 

* * *

“Hey,” he says after coming in from shoveling. Crystals of snow cling to his hair and eyelashes, branding his skin a dark pink. Despite the brutal cold, he seems to be in good spirits. “How’re you holding up?”

They’re stuck in the middle of a storm, and a bad one at that; this is the third time today that Jason’s needed to go outside to shovel, and it’s only 2 p.m. He’ll probably have to go back out once or twice more before nightfall. She curses herself for not getting better enough to help him bear that burden. 

“Great.” 

The hoarseness of her voice suggests otherwise. 

* * *

She stays in bed the next day. She can’t move—doesn’t want to, is physically _unable_ to. 

Jason is in the kitchen, making her something to eat even though they both know she’ll only just pick at it. She hears the clinking of metal and ceramic, the sounds building and growing and prickling until they echo so harshly into her body that she forgets to breathe. 

A part of her wants to scream, maybe at him and maybe at herself, because she isn’t going to get better so why the hell should either of them even _try_ anymore? 

She wants to tell him to just leave her already; she’s holding him back, she’s keeping him from helping other people, she’s hoarding all of his _goodness_ and it’s being _wasted_ on her. 

Instead of doing either, she presses her face into the pillows. It might be to stop that damn noise from stabbing into her, though it might also be an attempt to smother herself. The sheets reflect an insufferable heat into her, no longer cool as they were the night before; they echo the fire blooming over her aching skin with each unfortunate pound of her pulse. 

At least they’re softened from their sleep. Despite their unbearable warmth, they’re comforting to her skin, and they smell like Jason. That’s her only real solace at the moment. She buries herself further beneath them to feel warm and safe for once. 

It doesn’t work. 

* * *

He comes in a short while later with her food—homemade chicken soup, no doubt a recipe he’s gotten from Alfred. 

It smells good, but tastes like ash on her tongue. 

Still, she eats some for Jason’s sake. She drains half of the broth before setting the bowl back down on the tray and turning back to face the wall. She doesn’t want to see his eyes or his concern or his frustratingly-patient smile. 

* * *

He climbs into bed with her that night—his hands find the curve of her waist like they always do—one of his legs hooks over her own—he leans in close enough that she can feel his breath fanning over her face—she recoils, ever so slightly, pressing her back against the cool wall because the mere thought of being touched makes bile bubble up in her throat. 

She isn’t good enough to be touched now, not when she’s so broken and not when she doesn’t deserve him and not when she knows they’ll never really be the same.

Jason removes himself from her as soon as he feels her flinch. “Sorry.”

“It’s-” _my fault my problem not yours_ “-alright.” 

She simultaneously feels lost without his touch and drowning with it. The only question that haunts her deep into the night is if she’d rather wander a thousand years in the dark or feel the breath ripped from her chest in just five minutes. 

* * *

Something in her chest is wound so tightly that she knows one of these mundane days it's going to burst. She'll either stop breathing completely or finally take in large lungfulls of air, and she doesn't know which one she wants—or rather, is deserving of—more. 

* * *

She wakes up one morning, too warm again, with one of Jason’s legs over her own and his hands on her back. 

Despite his previous hesitance in holding her, his unconscious body draws into her, surrounding her like it can’t bear the thought of sleeping without her; she’s lost to him, with him, in him. 

Gunfire trembles and echoes in her ears; a twinge of pain right where she got shot throbs, demanding to be felt. There’s a restlessness in her body that makes her feel like she’s going to die if she doesn’t move right then and there. There’s fire in her veins, too; she’s burning like she’s tied to the stake. 

She can’t breathe, _she can’t breathe_. 

Even looking at Jason’s peaceful face doesn’t calm her down. It just makes her want to cry, seizing up her lungs and clenching down on her heart like an unyielding fist. 

Slowly, carefully, she pulls his hand off and pushes his leg over. The bed creaks when she shifts upright, but the soft whisper of Jason’s breathing doesn’t change, nor do his eyes open. She stands, embracing the slightly cooler air surrounding her as she does; something that’s woven between every fiber in her body is telling her to _run_. 

She swallows the urge, forcing it into a little ball that she can feel latching onto the inside of her chest. She can’t run, not when Jason is here and not when she can’t stand to see the look on his face if she does. Instead, she creeps into the main room, where dawn is just brushing its rosy fingertips over the world outside the window and where ghostly flames flicker in the wood stove. 

Her throat is dry; she wants to put the kettle on, but can’t knowing it’ll wake Jason up. The burning sensation returns, and it’s like she’s getting shot all over again, with cold Russian air biting at her skin and begging her to succumb and sleep. Laying out in the snow and doing just that is a tempting prospect, just to numb her body and forget the pain. 

She settles for pressing her hands and forehead against the cool glass of the window that faces the east. That way, she can watch the sun rise while also extinguishing the hellfire trapped beneath her sorry, sinful skin. 

Her body still aches to move though. It’s like there’s something behind her, perpetually, with terrible intentions if it ever catches her. 

It’s now or never. She can either push through the agony that claws into her body or suffer from defeat for the rest of her life. Her mind asks why she ever left; the fight has never abandoned her, it seems, even when she ran from it. 

Right. She did it to save herself. Funny, because now she has to do the same, all over again. 

Her breath is shaky in an anticipation of the blinding pain—her reflection stares back at her, both in pity and daring—she arches her arms back, slowly—a twinge of heat sparks right in her chest, but she grits her teeth and continues straightening her shoulders—a flame ignites in her lung, a burning that spreads like wildfire as her hands clasp each other behind her back. 

She holds the position, her frantic breathing fogging up the glass and obscuring the picturesque world beyond it. Refreshing cold no longer traces over her skin, but she endures the fire scorching her body anyway. 

Her arms relax after a steady count to twenty. It still hurts, still _burns_ , but the pain is disjointed, staticky, even—it’s as if a million different white-hot needles prick into her skin. It’s a new and old sensation all mixed into one, though it feels something more like progress. 

She rolls her shoulders back. Unbearable heat still traces over her body, but she keeps staring at the daybreak that is softened and blurred by her breath on the window. She completes the exercise all the way through.

A creak in the floor boards behind her tells her she’s not the only one up anymore. When she turns to face him, she can breathe a little bit easier than she was able to previously. 

“Did I wake you?” she asks. Part of her feels guilty at the prospect, though another part of her feels equally distraught about leaving him to wake up alone after what happened in the Manor that one night. 

She searches his face for any trace of panic. Concern is certainly swirling in his eyes and bunching his eyebrows, but he doesn’t look afraid; apprehension is also there, defined moreso in the stiffness of his body language than it is betrayed by his face. 

“No,” he says. 

“Ah, good.” She doesn’t know what else to say. Hot shame coats her face, burning more than the wound in her shoulder had. 

“Does it hurt?” Jason murmurs. His hand rubs his other wrist, like if he doesn’t physically occupy his hands he may reach out to her, and like that’s the worst case scenario for him. 

Her right hand finds her left trapezius, along the ridge of her shoulder. It aches, especially when she lightly massages it, but she knows now that she can move forward. Nodding, she says, “Yeah, but soon it won’t.”

“Do you- do you want me to get one of the bands?” he asks, cautious hope weaving its way into his voice. 

“Baby steps,” she says and offers him a smile. “I’ll- We’ll get there eventually.”

* * *

They’re eating breakfast at the table, or rather, they’re eating breakfast next to the table on the ground. No conversation flitters between them; only the sound of whispering flame and the clink of utensils on ceramic are present. Despite this, their legs brush up against each other, infinitely more intimate than she and Jason have been in a while. 

“I’m sorry, Jay,” she says out of nowhere.

“For what?” he asks. 

He has to know that she’s been unfair to him during the past few weeks, that she’s hurt him and used him and maybe even hated him a little bit, too. Then again, Jason is so used to all of those things that maybe they don’t prick into his skin anymore, or else he doesn’t notice them. Her stomach churns at the thought.

“For- for not being a good friend,” she finally decides. 

Out of habit, Jason reaches for her unoccupied hand, only to freeze a fraction away. He's undoubtedly remembering the night’s previous events. “Can I. . . ?”

“Of course.”

His fingers lace with hers, fitting so perfectly that she doubts any other pieces in the world were so expertly made for each other. 

It’s then that she realizes drowning for Jason, even a dozen, a hundred, a million times will always always _always_ be worth it. She squeezes his hand at the thought. 

“You don’t have to apologize,” he starts, his thumb tracing smooth circles into the back of her hand. “I know that this- that this sort of thing is difficult, and that it hurts, and that, well, it’s hell to go through.”

Hot anger, something she hasn’t felt in a while, stirs within her. It’s directed more at herself than him, because she knows she doesn’t _deserve_ him. “That’s hardly an excuse for my behavior-”

“That may be true, but I know better than anyone what it’s like to recover from things like this.” The sad but determined blue of his eyes pierces her; it isn’t painful though, instead offering something more understanding. 

He’s recovered from worse, after all: death itself. And while Jason had the help of the Lazarus pit, he still had to deal with the ghostly tidings of pain that still pulled at his tired nerves and he still had to deal with regaining control over his abused body and he still had to deal with the memories that haunted every waking and unconscious thought. And here she is, moaning and whining and pouting over something as small and stupid as a bullet wound-

“Christ.” It’s a strangled grunt from her throat as she loudly sets down the bowl. “Jason, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry-”

She doesn’t even realize she’s crying until his hand, the one she had so desperately clung to, wipes hot tears away from her cheeks. 

“It’s okay, you don’t need to apologize.” His voice is soft, softer than the first hesitant rays of sunshine in spring, softer than the light from a waning crescent moon. 

But she does need to apologize.

The words crawl out from her throat over and over again, fizzling out and dissolving into nothing and trailing away into empty cries. And Jason, amidst quiet coos and soft caresses, manages to accept each one, for her sake. 

* * *

Whether it be her wound or her relationship with Jason, it doesn’t exactly get easier after that. 

The discomfort and pain is there; when a big storm blows through and the pressure drops, a hollow ache settles within the scar. The stretches still hurt, too, but she can actually complete the reps, so it’s better.

The grim smile that Jason always wears is still there, though she knows that he’s just trying to help her. It breaks and steels her at the same time. 

Instead of burning with the pain, she’s tempered it. And Jason’s with her every step of the way, his hand in hers and his voice soft in her ear. He brings the cool she needs to breathe in every now and then just to clear her head up again. 

They can rebuild. They can rebuild together. 

* * *

Jason insists on taking her into town, probably to get them out of the cabin and to find some kind of normalcy outside of their situation. There isn’t much to see, but they’re both glad to be out of the cabin for a little while; even when walking through the dark slush piled on the sides of the road, she and Jason manage to joke and laugh. 

They enter the little bookstore at the end of Main Street, eager for new books because the twelve they’d been cycling through before were becoming a little bland, to say the least. 

He finds an old, well-worn copy of _Julius Caesar_ while she picks up some of the local herbal references and an almanac to use come springtime. He eyes the books suspiciously. 

“If you need any digging done, come to me right away, okay?” Jason asks, the books wrapped in newspaper beneath one of his arms, his other hand clasped with hers. The sky stretching endlessly above them, dotted only with the lace of only a few sparse cirrus clouds, pale in comparison to the warm blue of his irises. 

She holds her unoccupied hand up in mock defense. “Okay, okay. I promise.”

Jason grins at her, carefree, genuinely happy, and lovingly, too. She hasn’t seen him smile like that in ages. 

She’d be a fool if she didn’t return it. 

* * *

They fall asleep on the quilt in front of the fire one night soon after. 

She and Jason are just enjoying each other’s company and warmth, listening to the fire crackle in between their soft laughter. Curled up into his side, using his bicep as a pillow, she nuzzles into him, breathing in the smell of his skin mingled with her soap and feeling so indescribably _happy_. Their chuckles fade away into soft sighs. She begins slipping under at the feeling of his chest rising and falling beneath her head and the faint sound of his pulse in her ear. 

They don’t break the silence again, instead succumbing both to the drowsiness pulling down at their eyes and to each other. 

* * *

As she wakes, the fire is nothing but a few smoldering coals, and the temperature of the cabin has dropped a few degrees. She shivers against Jason’s warm body, watching as the first rays of morning light trail into the room. 

Jason is worried when he finally comes to. That’s an understatement; panic twists up his face. 

“Shit,” he groans, trying to shuffle out from beneath her before she’s gotten up. Only when he realizes that he could hurt her does he stop. Reluctantly, because he’s _so warm_ , she manages to stand. “Are you- are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she says, trying not to smile too hard at the scrunch of his brow or the hair stuck to his forehead. He tries to brace up on his arms, only the one she was previously resting on is undoubtedly numb, and he can’t exactly control it. Jason hits the ground with a dull thud.

He grits his jaw, looking somewhere between agitated at her refusal to take this seriously and distressed that they’d slept on the floor the entire night. She watches, almost with fascination, as the two emotions fight for dominance; he settles on the latter. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Mhmm.” She rolls her shoulder, feeling only some stiffness and a dull twinge of pain, but nothing more. 

“Are you sure- _sure_?” he asks, finally able to stand up. Looking like he both wants to rush up to her to check her injuries and like he’s scared to even get near her, he stays in place, unmoving.

She nods. “Yes, Jason.”

He doesn’t look convinced. “I’ll take care of breakfast today, okay? And I can rub your back later, if you want?”

“Jason,” she says, stepping closer. Ruffling his bed-head, she continues, “You don’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I do,” he murmurs. 

There’s an intensity that she’s seldom seen him wear that brands his face—it’s a crude mixture of self-loathing and forced responsibility. He isn’t happy with himself because he thinks she’s still fragile, when she _isn’t_. 

“No, you don’t,” she says finally. “Though if you insist on making breakfast, how about I help?”

‘ _Take my hand_ ,’ is what she wants to continue with. ‘ _Take my hand and hold onto it because I promise that none of this is your fault. You don’t have to make up for anything, you don’t have to do anything to appease anyone, you don’t have to do anything you_ think _that you do_.’

She doesn’t, though; she knows he understands the true meaning behind the few words she did manage to speak. 

Jason’s gaze stares into her, maybe even through her. “Promise me you’re okay, and I’ll take you up on that offer.”

“I promise that I’m okay.” 

He scans over her face, searching for any hint of a lie or else any discomfort from her wounds. When he finds none, all of the tension leaves his body; his shoulders slump and he concedes a small, if not terse, smile. 

“Okay,” he says, brushing the pad of his thumb over her cheek. “I’ll handle the eggs if you handle the tea?”

It’s not much for her to do, but she smiles and concedes anyway. “Sure.”

* * *

The smell of Earl Grey and eggs with tabasco sauce soon fills up the room. It’s a welcome scent, one that reminds her of years shared with Jason prior to their current arrangement. 

Jason insists that she sits in the chair at the table—she says that she’s not going to leave him sitting alone on the floor to eat alone—he rolls his eyes and says he’ll stand next to her—she laughs and says they can try sharing the chair instead. 

“I can barely fit on that thing even without you,” he says, huffing as he bends over the table to cut his eggs. 

She laughs and nudges him with her elbow. “It’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?”

* * *

He insists on rubbing her back. Her shoulder’s been aching, especially since she’s started moving it more; it’s not just hot streaks of pain that flare up, but the dull strain that arises after a particularly strenuous workout. And while she’s thankful he wants to do it, she can’t stand how light his fingers press into the offending areas. 

She’s sitting in between his legs on the ground in front of the fire—he objected, saying that the bed would be better, to which she replied that the fire was too warm to leave, and he couldn’t really argue with her there. 

His muscled legs stretch out on either side of hers, the bottoms of his sweatpants bunched around his calves. While she’s close enough to feel the heat radiating off of his body, she isn’t touching his chest; in fact, their only points of contact are his hands on her back, which tentatively press into her. His fingertips are gentle as they trace over the hills and valleys of her muscles—it’s less of a massage and more of a tender stroking over her skin. It’s borderline ticklish, and shivers echo over her body with every graze.

She breathes in the smell of the storebrand soap they both use that somehow manages to smell sweeter on his skin. This is killing her—the tender caresses, the overbearing silence, the intimate closeness. She needs _more_ from him. 

“Jason.” Her voice is nothing more than a humming murmur, barely audible over the crackling of coals. 

He leans in closer, still not touching her more than he has to. His breath against her ear is slow and heavy. “What’s up?”

“You can go harder, okay? I promise I won’t break.” She means to say it like a joke, though it comes out just as muted as his voice. 

She knows that he wants to protest—she can tell by the way his hands freeze on her back like they’re unsure of where to go; a sharp inhale sounds, like he’s about to say something, but the words never come. Instead, his thumbs press into her back just a little more, unsure. 

“Is- is this okay?” he finally asks. 

“It’s perfect,” she smiles, placing her hand over his ankle and giving it a reassuring squeeze. 

* * *

Now that they’ve fallen into a productive rhythm again, between cooking and doing physical therapy and reading and just _existing_ together, she feels like she can finally breathe again. There’s a calm to them now; they’re far away from all of the conflict in the world, yes, but they’ve also found peace in one another, too. 

She and Jason joke like old times, wielding their words as if they were sparring, though all in good humor; they talk about everything and nothing just like before, too, through ideas to stories to stupid little what-ifs that lower the stars to just beyond their reach. 

It’s like all of those days where she was drowning in nostalgia have finally left their mark, but instead of suffocating mold spores, she’s been reborn, cleansed, _freed_. 

The smiles they share are genuine, and the kisses they exchange are sweet. She’s in deep, and she doesn’t even care if she gets hurt anymore. 

* * *

A streak of crimson cuts through the white landscape as she looks out into it. It’s midday, and despite earlier flurries, the sun shines. She recognizes the red—a cardinal, probably foraging for food. 

She remembers the winters they visited for the holidays when she was still just a toddler, swaddled tightly in heavy clothing as she walked up to their house; the smell of pines trailed both inside and out, along with the smell of fire. Pine cones and peanut butter—her grandmother’s gnarled hands—hardwood floors beneath feet swallowed in socks—seasonal music and the murmur of flames in the fireplace. 

Her grandmother’s voice is soft in her ear at that moment: ‘ _Sometimes we need to help them out to make sure that red comes back next year_.’

Jason’s arms wrap around her stomach, pulling her against his warm chest. She’s startled from her thoughts, though doesn’t mind it in the slightest if he’s the one doing it. Brushing his lips over the top of her hair, he asks, “What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”

“Just. . . memories,” she says, her hands covering his. “From when I was a kid.”

“Yeah?” 

She smiles and leans her head back against him. “Yeah.” 

A comfortable silence settles between them. He knows not to prod just like she does, and it’s something that she’s infinitely grateful for when she doesn’t have the words to explain everything. 

“Hey, Jason,” she says, breaking the quiet that had gathered within the cabin. “Want to come outside with me?”

He presses a warm kiss over her temple. “Sure.” 

* * *

Their gloved hands are clasped together and holed up in Jason’s coat pocket. She laughs when he almost slips on the walkway, while he just shoots her a dirty look as he regains his balance. 

“Just be glad I didn’t fall and take you down with me,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck with his unoccupied hand. 

“Oh, I am,” she smiles. A second later, she stands on her toes to kiss his already-frostbitten cheek. 

“So where are we off to today?” He grins at her like she’s the first ray of sunlight after a week of rain, and her heart stutters.

“Into the woods,” she says. 

The blue of his eyes sharpens into something like worry. “Are you up to it?”

“I wouldn’t have suggested it if I wasn’t,” she says, squeezing his hand. “Besides, I haven’t had much of a hike since the summer, and I figured we might as well enjoy the country air while we can, before another storm blows in.” 

“I guess you’re right.” Playful suspicion lightens the tone of his words. “I still feel like you’ve got an ulterior motive for bringing me all the way out here, though.”

She snorts and glances back at the direction they came from—she can still see the dark stone of the cabin. “Yes, because we are _so completely_ surrounded by wilderness with no hope of finding our way back.”

“Of course,” he says, going along with her ruse. His thumb rubs over the back of her hand. “Why do you think I’m holding your hand? It’s so we don’t get separated.”

A spout of laughter pulls from her lungs, surprising them both. She’s missed this: the playfulness, the carelessness, the utter _joyfulness_. For far too long, they’ve been wary of each other, afraid to hurt one another because they’ve both been hurt too much. 

But now? Now, they’re free. 

She doesn’t say anything else, instead bringing him along the path to the stream. 

* * *

Their hands stay clasped as she leads them to a grove of short-leaved pines, one just a little ways west of the wild raspberries she’d foraged in the summer. They’re as imposing as before, stretching their slender limbs up into the cloudless sky, though are suffocated with snow. 

“And what’s so special about these?” Jason asks. For the umpteenth time, his thumb traces a circle over the top of her hand, and she can’t say she really minds. 

“Nothing much,” she says with a grin. “Now, I’ll need you to let go-”

“I swear to God if you climb up one of these godforsaken trees, I will place you under house arrest until spring,” he groans. His hand gives hers one last squeeze before letting go nonetheless. 

“We’re not climbing them,” she says. Jason’s shoulders slump with relief, and she figures it’s okay to tease him just a little bit. “ _Yet_.”

The withering glare he shoots her way only makes her smile wider. “Very funny.”

“Oh, I know I am.” 

Crouching, she begins to dig through the wet snow at the base of the trunk. Jason joins her, though she has yet to tell him what they’re looking for. Together, they manage to clear a good four square feet. That’s when she finds the first pinecone. 

“Bingo,” she says, holding it up like it was some precious jewel for him to examine.

“A pinecone?” Jason asks. His eyes narrow, though there’s a playful curve to his mouth. “We nearly risked our lives for a _pinecone_?”

She scoffs. “I’d hardly say a mere bunny hop over a frozen stream is ‘risking our lives.’”

“Still, what the hell do we need pinecones for?”

“Homemade bird feeders,” she says. 

Jason nods sagely in mock agreement. “Of course. How did I not piece it together before?”

“Smartass.” It’s her turn to stage a glare his way. 

When that fails to discourage him, she turns back to the little indentation they’ve made to start gathering the fruits of their labor. He helps her collect them, even offering to carry them in his pockets for the way back, but only if he gets to hold her hand. She rolls her eyes, but gladly takes his hand anyway. 

* * *

The walk back to the house is less eventful. He helps her over a fallen tree that spans the stream seeing as they can’t jump from the stone wall on the way back. His voice cuts out her name when she slips a little, though he does his best not to let it show his worry once she’s regained her balance; the slight crease in between his eyebrows gives him away. Other than that, though, they’re fine. Perfect, even. 

That’s because his hand stays in hers the entire trek home. 

* * *

“Christ, it’s cold,” Jason says as they stamp out the snow caked in their boots just outside of the door. 

“Truly an astute observation,” she grins. The click of the door sounds as she opens it, along with a wave of much needed warmth. 

She turns to shoot him a playful wink, but his bare fingers brush over her lips. “Hush.”

Despite the cold still clinging to her, fire races over her cheeks. She closes the door behind them, wrapping her arms around his neck; his hands find her hips in an instant, and while they can’t exactly get close enough to each other because of the pinecones bulging out from his pockets, they just manage to skim their lips together. 

She giggles at their predicament. Leaning back onto her heels, her hands play with the untidy locks at the nape of his neck. “Don’t think you can shut me up that easily, Jay.”

“I can’t?” he asks with a too-innocent upturn of the words. 

“Nope.” 

Tunneling beneath his wool cap, her fingers knot in his hair. She wants to kiss him again, wants to kiss him a thousand times over and then even more. 

He hums, grinning. “I’m pretty sure I can.”

“Someone’s awfully cocky today,” she says. Her nails scratch lightly over his scalp, and Jason’s beautiful eyes flutter shut. “I hold your hand for twenty minutes, and suddenly you think you’re some grand Casanova?”

She’s shocked by the blue of his eyes when he opens them again. “But you love me.”

“But I love you,” she agrees. 

She swears that his smile burns brighter than the sun at that moment. 

* * *

The actual creation process of the feeders doesn’t go as smoothly. 

Jason’s reluctant to spare some of his peanut butter—“I bought that with my hard-earned money,”—and she chastises him for his stubbornness—“We can always get more. I’ll pay for it, too.”

She also forgets that they don’t exactly have bird seed at the cabin, and it’s not like either one of them wants to venture out to the store so late in the day; they make do with plain poppy seeds instead, even though they only have one small container. 

The misshapen brown and blue-grey mounds look much different than the ones that she made as a child—at the same time, these have been made with both her hands and Jason’s, so she thinks that they’re perfect. 

There’s a streak of peanut butter smeared over his chin. He eyes the feeders warily. “So we hang these up outside?”

“Yep,” she says. Her thumb swipes over his face, gathering the stray spread onto it before popping it into her mouth. She doesn’t acknowledge the pink dusting his cheeks with anything more than a smile. “I think I’ve got some twine around here somewhere.”

“Sounds- sounds good.” 

She pecks his cheek before rummaging through the kitchen’s drawers. 

* * *

They hang them up on a young maple tree at the edge of the clearing. Some of its branches bend—they must’ve put too much peanut butter on those—but for the most part, everything is sturdy and in place. 

Jason is reluctant to leave, and to wait. He wants to see what all the fuss is about up close and immediately; she knows that they’ve got at least thirty minutes to an hour until the first curious birds come a-picking, and even then, they’ll be far and few between. 

She practically tugs him back inside, and only under the pretense of hot chocolate and stew. 

“All that trouble and only a few measly sparrows come along,” Jason huffs into his mug. He’s been stationed at the window ever since they’ve gotten inside. 

“Those are finches and chickadees, Jason. Just you wait: tomorrow, the cardinals and nuthatches’ll come around. They’re a lot more fun to look at,” she snorts. She’s in the kitchen preparing dinner, though even she isn’t exempt from stealing a few glances out to their little project. 

Jason turns to her, blinking. “How do you know that?”

“Experience?”

“Huh,” he says. His eyes are still caught on her, and a smile worms its way over his lips. “You want any help with that?”

“No, thanks, though. Just keep the fire warm for me, okay?” she asks. 

“Of course.” The grin he sends her way warms her infinitely more than any mere fire could. 

* * *

They sit in front of the wood stove, swaddled in blankets and with full bellies. She rests between his legs, leaning back into his warm chest, hearing his precious pulse in her ear and feeling each thankful breath of his sweep over the top of her head. 

One of Jason’s hands finds hers. The calluses of his palms, hardened and caked there from years of work, drag over her own. Their roughness isn’t terrible, and the warmth of his thick fingers more than makes up for their ticklish scratches over her own tired skin. When their hands finally clasp, it feels like everything right in the world has suddenly clicked into place. 

His lips brush against her temple. “We should get up now before we fall asleep here again.”

“Yeah, we probably should.”

Neither of them makes a move to do so.

* * *

Jason is so warm when she wakes up. It’s the kind of _warm_ that nests in her bones, fills up her chest, and softens her sleep-hazed mind even further. Every point of contact between them—his stomach to her back, her head to his chest, his legs to hers, his hands to her hips—sparks a tender sort of flame within her, akin to the guiding yellow of candlelight. 

He’s awake before her for once. His breathing may be deep and even, matching the rhythm of her own, but the way he’s touching her eludes to his consciousness. 

Her shirt has ridden up slightly during the night; Jason’s hands trace small circles into the exposed skin. His touch is somehow softer than the worn quilts laying over them, just whispering over her hips like the gentle caress from a summer breeze. 

Dewy light trails into the house from the windows, bathing everything in white. Heaven. She’s in heaven. She nestles further into him.

“I love you,” she murmurs into the calm air. She laces her fingers with his, bringing the two up to her face. Her lips brush over his knuckles with a smile. Jason’s breath catches, and she can feel the freeze of his chest behind her. 

Awe is thick in his words when he responds. “I love you, too.”

* * *

It’s a quarter from noon. They’ve never started the day so late; one of them has always woken up significantly earlier than the other—they can’t seem to escape the echoes of vigilantism as of yet—and while they have stayed in bed to enjoy the other’s embrace, they’ve never strung it out for so long. 

Their stomachs may growl in tandem and the cabin may grow colder because the fire is nothing more than a dim smolder, but they’re content to stay pressed up against one another to keep their own warmth. 

She can’t say she minds. 

They’re alive, they’re together, they’re happy, and they’re in love. What more could she ask for?

* * *

It’s flurrying by the time they do finally untangle from each other. White bleeds into every dark tree, diluting the color under a pale veil. Their eyes keep flicking outside as they make breakfast—oatmeal, today—out to the blue-white world, out to softened landscape, out to the tree line where they hung the feeders. 

“Look, Jay,” she says in a quiet voice. A flash of red streaks to the feeders, and she already knows it’s a cardinal solely on its shocking plumage. 

He presses his face up against the glass like he’s never seen the color before. The way his nose smooshes against the window ever so slightly and his breath creeps over the glass is utterly adorable. She watches him more than she does the wondrous world outside. 

* * *

Her shoulder aches dully as they sit in front of the fire and read. It seems that with every flicker of flame, pain flutters throughout her body, a quiet whisper at first, but the longer she focuses on it the louder it gets. 

She leans up against Jason, setting her long-since-abandoned book down beside her. His arm wraps around her immediately. 

“You okay?” he asks.

She forces in a long, deep breath, allowing his soft warmth to seep into her and lessen the harsh fire roaring within. “I’m getting there.”

* * *

She wakes up to the sensation of being carried. Thick, strong arms support her upper back and hook beneath her knees; quiet breath, save for a harshly-whispered curse that sounds whenever the floorboards creak, is all she can hear. 

She groans, groggy, trying to sit up. A twinge of pain shoots through her, and that groan cuts into a harsh inhale. “Jay?”

“Yeah,” he says with a disappointed sigh. “Sorry for waking you up.”

“It’s no problem.” 

Shadows obscure his body and face, so she can’t see exactly what emotion he wears; the way he stiffens beneath her, hardly breathing and not responding, says that he doesn’t really know what to do in this situation. A sleepy giggle bubbles in her throat as she leans back into his arms. Only then does he start cautiously shuffling back over to the bedroom. 

He sets her down onto the mattress gently, like she’s something fragile even though she isn’t. His warm hand brushes over her shoulder. The bed dips beside her, and she hears the rustling of heavy fabric as he pulls the covers over them. 

Her arms find their way around his neck as if pulled by an invisible string. The warmth of his clothed back almost burns her frigid fingers, but she pulls herself into him anyway. Jason’s own hands wrap around her body, albeit hesitantly, like he’s afraid she’ll pull away all of a sudden. She just holds on tighter to him. 

“Goodnight, Jason,” she whispers, her lips just grazing over his ear. 

She hears him suck in a breath but not let another one out; his hands, fitting perfectly in the curve of her waist, clench harder into her; he nestles into her shoulder, his nose and lips pressed up against the sensitive skin there. 

When he finally does breathe again, the rumbling reverberation of his words echoes throughout her body. “Goodnight.”

* * *

Her throat is parched and her head pounds from dehydration. It’s hot beneath the covers and beneath Jason; somehow, in the middle of the night, she laid on her back and he followed her, to where he rested, facing down, on her stomach. She giggles, mainly because his bare feet, poking out from beneath the covers, hang a good foot off of the bed. Her hands tangle in his hair as she shrugs some of the blankets off. 

She doesn’t care even if it’s hot and even if she’s thirsty and even if it’s a little uncomfortable to have all of Jason’s weight pressing her into the shitty mattress. This is where she’s meant to be. 

* * *

His hair is wavy and wild from sleep when he finally comes to; the locks of his cowlick stick straight up into the air. She twirls her fingers around a few particularly unruly strands; his arms tighten around her, and she feels a hum in his throat vibrating over her stomach. 

“Can we stay in bed today?” Jason asks. The words are muffled because his mouth is pressed against her chest, and neither of them wants him to move. She wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“Of course,” she says with a smile. 

* * *

Jason does unfortunately get up once to grab them some breakfast. They both agree that they aren’t in the mood to make something—that just means even more time apart, not swaddled in warm blankets and in each other’s embrace—so he grabs some sugary cereal and water. Certainly not a gourmet introduction to the day by any means, but she figures it suits them. 

She’s grateful when he comes back, because she missed the feeling of his arms around her. The bed dips, and the plastic bag inside the cereal box crinkles, followed by loud crunches from Jason. She can’t help the loose string of giggles that sneak from her mouth. 

“You’re hogging all of it, Jay,” she chastises him with a poke to the stomach. 

He steadies the box on the nightstand and ruffles her hair. “I’m just checking to make sure it’s not poisoned for you.”

“Uh huh.” Disbelief is thick in her voice. 

“Yep,” he agrees, shooting her a grin. Her heart stumbles and falls, and she doesn’t want it to ever be balanced ever again. “Good news: I think this batch is safe.”

She rolls her eyes, reaching to grab some. “Whatever would I do without you?”

“Beats me,” he says. 

Jason scoots closer, pulling the covers over his exposed legs—she still doesn’t understand how he can wear shorts when the internal temperature of the cabin doesn’t go past seventy degrees. When he’s fully in bed with her, she’s effectively squished between the wall and his broad frame. The light from outside, reflected inwards from the infinite white around them, is blinding; Jason’s feet don’t hang off the edge, but it’s close even with him sitting up straight in bed; she can barely move between the sheer amount of blankets they have and the cold wall and the arm Jason managed to snake around her waist when she was focused on inhaling breakfast. 

Does she mind? Not in the slightest.

No, this is perfect.

* * *

After a _very_ nutritious start to the day, they swaddle themselves up again in the blankets. Jason is so warm that she swears she’s melded completely into him; his hands brush against the skin of her back and their legs are woven together and her face is buried in the junction where his thick neck meets his muscled shoulders. He smells like cheap shampoo and sleep, and it’s a scent that she can only describe further as _home_. 

* * *

That night, they pull themselves from their bed to maybe have some semblance of a normal day. The wistful and almost mischievous glances they send to each other, however, suggest the true gleeful ridiculousness of their past twelve hours together: tangled and curved and pressed against one another in the sweetest of embraces. 

When they’ve eaten and are sitting by the fire, Jason moves to the shelves where she has her books lined up. She expects him to come back with one, but when he sits back down, he has a red envelope in his hands. 

“What’s this?” he asks, and she knows he’s already seen his name written on the back of it. 

Something between terror and guilt streaks through her stomach. “I- um, well, it’s a birthday present for you. I- I never got the courage to send it.”

“Can I. . . ?” Jason regards her cautiously, no doubt picking up on her tense body language. 

“Sure,” she says, forcing herself to breathe. “It was meant for you, after all.”

With careful fingers, he opens the envelope. She holds her breath. All of the want and adoration that festered within her in the months that she was gone is in those pages, and she doesn’t know how he’ll react when he finally sees just how irreplaceable he is to her. 

Her eyes are trained on his face as his own scan through the pages. Jason’s eyebrows knit, then relax, then crumple again; his mouth seems to both frown and smile. She knows why: ‘ _I miss you, I need you, I love you_ ’ is traced in every stroke of ink. 

She doesn’t say anything, and neither does he. The rustling of pages and the crackling of fire are the only sounds that fill the cabin. 

When he reaches the bottom of the last page, where she signed her name beneath ‘ _Forever Yours_ ,’ a tear that glistens with the light of the flames traces down his cheek. His hands shake when he folds the pages back up. 

“I really _was_ too scared to send it,” she says. “I- I figured you hated me and wouldn’t want it, or else it’d keep you from moving on.”

“I could never hate you, let alone move on from you.” His voice is raw and deep and scared and loving all at the same time. 

A lump grows in her throat. “There’s more. In, um, in the bottom of the envelope.”

“More?” he murmurs with a vulnerable smile. She can’t breathe, not when he’s looking deep into her like she’s the moon and he’s terrified of the night’s dark. “Christ, you already gave me the entire world through this letter and letting me come back here with you. What more could you possibly have to give me?”

“Everything I have to offer,” she confesses, then stutters in continuation, because the actual gift she made him is hardly as precious an item as he deserved. “But, um, the gift I got you is kind of, well. . . .”

She trails off, unsure of where to go from there. Jason takes it as an invitation to carefully open the blood red envelope once more, peering into it. His eyebrows quirk up. 

“A bookmark?” he asks softly, his eyes still shiny. He holds up the bookmark, the dried chicory flowers still as bright and blue as ever. And yet, somehow they dim when they’re close to the startling azure of his irises. She realizes she was a fool for ever thinking anything could ever match that brilliant color. 

“Yeah,” she says. Her voice is hoarse even though she doesn’t want it to be. “I know you hate creasing to keep the page you’re on, especially when patrolling. I- I made it myself.”

The fire from the wood stove carves ever-shifting shadows across his face; light jumps over his cheeks and lips and brow, glimmering in his eyes. Jason has never looked so gorgeous as he does in the moment, his mouth bowed into a small smile and wonder tracing over every feature. “What kind of flower is this?”

“Chicory,” she coughs, scratching her cheek. It’s really a lackluster flower, a weed, and she suddenly hates herself for not choosing something prettier or more worthwhile. 

“Chicory, huh?” He turns the bookmark around in his hands, carefully, like it’s made of glass and not lamination plastic. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen something so _blue_.”

Biting her lip, she blurts out, “Your eyes.”

Jason looks at her, absolutely surprised, before bursting out into laughter. “Really?”

Her cheeks burn from the embarrassment of saying that out loud and from thinking a fucking _bookmark_ was a halfway decent gift to the boy who deserved every single star in the sky. She can only nod, reaching for his hand and squeezing it tightly. Softly, she taps _I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you_ into his hand, over and over and over again because _she does_. 

“What on earth did I do to deserve you?” he asks. Jason’s still grinning like he won the lottery as he traces soft circles onto the back of her hand. 

“Jason,” she murmurs. She leans in closer, so she can see the flames dance and sparkle in his eyes. His breath catches when she says his name, and it’s her turn to smile. “You deserve so much. So, _so_ much. I can only promise to give you everything that you deserve.”

He hums, brushing his lips over her cheek. “I- I should be the one saying that. Christ, I want to give you the entire world for just- just sticking with me.”

“I’ll always be by your side, Jason,” she says, and she means it. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he says, breathless and sweet. 

She drowns in the way he says it and the warmth of his hands and the blue of his eyes all at once; she doesn’t care if she never comes up for air again, doesn’t care if she’s lost to his sea forevermore, doesn’t care if she dies in his deep. It’s worth it, a million times over. It’s worth the heartbreak and the longing and the bated breaths and the what-ifs and the ache of her chest, forever and ever. 

His lips meet hers in a tender caress. And she melts into him, enjoying the feeling of his body against hers and their mingling breaths and just _him_. 

She’s gone, lost to him, and she doesn’t ever want to be found. 

* * *

Sun spills in from the window, honeying the room. Even with the curtains Jason insisted on installing, it’s bright; she never expected to feel golden warmth pooling into her cottage so brazenly, but living in the countryside has its benefits (though Jay would call this particular feature a detriment). 

His heavy weight pushes her into the mattress, keeping her secured to it and covering her in warmth. His muscled arms surround her waist, and his head rests sweetly on her chest. 

Her fingers follow the contours of his muscular back, relishing in the feeling of his warm skin. Every once in a while, she feels rough, puffy edges from scars and takes care to run her fingertips even softer over them. This is where she belongs: in Jason’s arms, loving him, not worrying about tomorrow, completely at home. 

As both her hands trace up, falling between the valleys and ridges of his trapezius muscles, she reaches his thick neck. The scruff of his hair tickles her fingers at the nape of her neck—he’s due for a haircut. 

Her hands curl into his thick, dark locks, still damp from a late night shower. Jason’s throat rumbles. “That feels so good.”

“‘Morning, sunshine,” she laughs. “I hope I didn’t wake you?”

“Not at all.” His voice is muffled by her chest. From what she can see, his eyes are still closed. His arms tighten around her waist as he pulls her—if possible—closer to him. 

“Jason,” she smiles, trailing her fingers back down his neck. He shudders against her, moaning softly. 

“Mm?” 

“How does another lazy day sound?”

He squeezes his arms and she giggles. “Absolutely heavenly.”

She knows he’ll have to go back, eventually. And she knows that he may not return to her after that, for fear of her safety or because he’s gotten in his head again. 

She hums, enjoying the feeling of their hearts beating together and his breath on her skin all the same. 

They love each other. They’re together right now and they love each other, tangled in an embrace that’s so warm and so safe that nothing can disrupt it. 

For now, this is enough. This is enough for the both of them. 


End file.
